The People's Voice
by Earthcat123
Summary: Becker's latest staff replacement Sargent West seems as normal as they come until an unwanted figure from West's past comes back to haunt her. The ARC team soon find themselves caught up in a deadly family rivalry that could cost lives.
1. Chapter 1

**_This is a new fic that has been sitting in my head for absolutley ages. Please note that there will be a very slow update on this due to school and my life being far too busy. Reviews are muchly appreciated! :D_**

**Chapter One**

It was just another day at the office. Abby was in the menagerie, Connor was tinkering with some new contraption of his, Jess was running a systems diagnostic on the ADD and Matt was going through reports with Lester. Emily was, as far as anyone else knew, with Abby, and Becker was sitting at his desk in the Hub writing out yet another condolence letter. It was, he decided, the worst part of the job. He had known Sargent Grey for a long time. They had become friends, and Becker had to try very hard not to get weighed down by it. They had been ambushed the day before by a group of Raptors, and Grey had been the chosen target. Of course, Grey's family would never know what happened. The only detail they would get was that he was killed in action and had died protecting his team. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either. Becker hated that he couldn't let the family know how Grey had died. It destroyed a little piece of him every time.

The inbuilt alarm on his watch beeped at him and he sighed, clicking Print on his computer. The printer he and Matt shared hummed for a few moments and Becker quickly scrawled his messy signature at the bottom. He folded it neatly in thirds and slotted it into a pre-typed envelope and sealed it on his way across the Hub to Jess.

"This needs mailing," he said to her, not trying to sound unfriendly but somehow managing it anyway. Jess seemed completely unphased, like she was used to this sort of thing.

"Sure," she smiled up at him, earning one back that didn't quite reach Becker's eyes.

"Is he here yet?" he asked before she could start spouting platitudes at him.

"Security shows he arrived twenty minutes ago. He's waiting in the Rec Room." Becker rolled his eyes. He liked a man to be early, it showed precision, a quality Becker looked for in his men, but twenty minutes? Twenty minutes, for a first meeting, was overdoing it. Jess laughed at his gesture and turned back to the ADD, giving Becker cause to smile properly and make his way through the Hub to the Rec Room, determined to be precisely on time.

Becker didn't know very much about Grey's replacement, Sargent West. He knew that West was Spanish, had recently moved into London because that's where he had been sent, and that he was a very good soldier. The Spanish Military division West had come from; a special field with a name Becker didn't know how to translate; hadn't sent West's file. Lester had told him that West didn't have a file, which only sparked more curiosity seeing as the same man had once said that EVERYONE had a file. But what Becker had seen was West's service record. The only other person he knew of to have a fifteen-page service record at the age of twenty nine was himself, and his commanding officer had said that was an achievement. By the looks of it, West had been in combat since he was old enough to know how to fire a gun. The Spanish had also said that West was "Subject to redeployment at any time," which made him sound like a piece of furniture rather than a man. But Becker wasn't going to complain. No matter how temporary, West sounded like a valuable addition to his team.

At 15:30 on the dot, Becker pushed open the door to the Rec Room, immediately spotting someone standing with their back to him, examining the nerdy film posters Connor had taped to one wall. An untouched glass of water sat on one of the coffee tables. As he entered, the person turned, and Becker was surprised to see a woman standing in front of him in ARC security uniform, baseball cap and all. She reacted first.

"Captain Becker? Sargent Teresa West, we had a meeting," she crossed the room and stretched out her hand. He shook it, his brain being unable to form words due to surprise, and noticed her distinct accent. Definitely Spanish, he thought to himself. His silence seemed to last a little too long, because a grin broke out across West's face and she put her hands in her back pockets.

"Let me guess, you got the impression I was a guy," she said.

"It was implied, yes," Becker confirmed, also smiling. It was more of an awkward 'you got me there' expression than a smile, but it would pass.

"It happens," West said, and another slightly too long silence passed between them before Becker remembered something important.

"Do you have your file on you?" he asked, getting right down to it as usual rather than bothering with small talk. He had a feeling he already knew the answer to his question.

"Sorry, no. You see, I don't actually have one." West's smile turned apologetic.

"Right. It's just that this operation is extremely high security and we need to know everything possible on our staff."

"Well, I know my service record was sent ahead of me," Confusion tinted both West's voice and her expression.

"Yes, we have that, but..."

"Well then you're going to have to make do," West cut him off, all trace of emotion completely gone. "It's more than anyone else has ever got." West looked at Becker with something in her eyes that told him he didn't want to press the matter any further.

In the short silence that followed, Becker evaluated West, and he had a feeling she was doing the same to him. His first impression? She was naive. She assumed that she could just step into Sargent Gray's position and carry on as if nothing had changed. She also seemed completely unprepared for the kind of work they did at the ARC: The kind of work that got people killed. He was tempted at that point to tell her that she wasn't the right person for the job, but something stopped him from making the decision. Her service record, still in his hand. He knew what she had done previously in her career, most of it special operations, undercover, elite work, plus her own fair share of front-line duty. His next logical thought along this path was that she was hiding something. The smiles, the easy-to-read face, the all-too-obvious emotions; they had to be an act. Either that or she was the luckiest person alive. He dismissed the last thought when he remembered how she had completely closed up when he had brought up her file, how she had gone from warm and friendly to cold and dismissive in less than a second. No, she was definitely playing up the naivety, and the fact that she was doing it in the first place told him he was never going to find out why. If he asked, she wouldn't tell, so there was no point.

Becker trusted his instincts; he had to, otherwise he would never have gotten anywhere in his life; and right now, they were telling him not to give West the job. But another part, the less rational, more insane part, was telling him that he should. Instinct said she was too volatile; he would never know what her next move will be and so having her as his second in command could endanger the whole team. But his other side was telling him that with a history like hers, there were bound to be things she could teach him and his men. Becker had never been much of a spec-ops soldier, so anything and everything she could give him was an added bonus. She would be his wild card; unpredictable but he could still count on her to follow orders and get the job done.

For the first time that he could remember, Becker ignored his instincts. He stretched out his hand to her again, noticing how her once warm eyes had turned cold and sharp. Warily, she responded to his handshake.

"Welcome to the Anomaly Research Centre," he said.

She loved that smile. His entire face softened when he did it and it was heart-meltingly beautiful. She also loved the fact that she could make him smile. Even when he was in one of his moods, like today, she made him smile. An odd sense of self-pride welled up inside Jess and she turned in her seat to get one last look at Becker before he left the hub. She sighed. _'Get a grip on yourself, Jess.'_ her mind said. _'He's only going around the corner.' _She turned back to the ADD, thankful that she was the only one in the room, and tried to focus on the systems diagnostic she was running rather than Becker. His smile wasn't the only thing that she loved about him. She loved his eyes, she loved his hair, that lovely, lovely hair that made her want to run her fingers through it, and she loved his unfaltering sense of protection. Actually, she loved everything about him, but especially his smile, and the fact that she could make him do it.

So it was understandable, then, that when Becker came back into the Hub twenty minutes later laughing with a woman Jess didn't know, she wasn't particularly happy about it.

Becker wasn't famous for laughing. He laughed with people he was friends with, so he laughed with Matt, occasionally with Jess and he tended to laugh more at Connor than with him, but he did not laugh with strangers. Not in that way. So, logically, Jess assumed that this woman was a close friend of his, and for some reason she didn't like that. Her mind was telling her not to be stupid, of course he has friends that are women, why is that so surprising? But Jess still wondered; what if the whole time she had been fluttering her eyelashes at him and dropping oh-so-subtle hints, he had actually been dating someone else? Had he even noticed her at all? True to her word, she had never read the personal bits of his file, so she didn't know. Jess suddenly felt very crushed and had to try hard not to cry. She ignored her mind yelling at her not to be so stupid and returned her full attention to the ADD, determined to get some work done and not think about Becker, or this woman, for the rest of the day. But she knew that wasn't going to happen. She was always thinking about Becker.

Three days later, Becker had completely changed his outlook on West. He had discovered through observation and common sense that her emotional outbursts were only there for appearances sake, but he had also realised that if she didn't do them, she would be a very scary person and come across to everyone she met as ruthless, cold and heartless. She had that sort of voice that demanded attention and obedience, and when she was angry with someone she narrowed her eyes and moved her head in such a way that blocked the light from them and made them go even darker than they already were. This, coupled with her almost unnatural beauty, made her someone you did not want to get on the wrong side of. Hers was an archaic beauty; the sort that originated in an ancient family and had filtered down without a single flaw through the generations. Becker imagined one of her ancestors as being the Duchess of Somewhere, with more money than she knew what to do with, a husband who would do anything for her and a village or small town to rule over. Or was that an extremely British thing to think? He had no idea.

Despite all this, he felt no attraction to her whatsoever. Yes, she was beautiful; he would have to be blind or stupid not to admit that; but Becker wasn't the kind of man to fall head-over-heels every time someone even mildly attractive came into his life. She made him laugh, and he reckoned that given enough time they could become good friends, that was it. And besides, the thought of Teresa West in a relationship with anybody was just plain weird.

The phrase _"speak of the devil and the devil shalt appear"_ went through his mind as West chose that moment to round the corner at the other end of the corridor. She was bent over a small computer console and didn't notice him, but as he passed her he got a look at the computer screen. BBC news, something about the war going on in Libya. Becker brushed his curiosity aside. It was none of his business, whatever her reasons.

At that moment, the ADD went off, sending flashing lights and sirens throughout the entire ARC. Once, he would have jumped out of his skin whenever that happened but not anymore. Now it was merely an annoyance. Behind him, West took off running towards the armoury and Becker sprinted towards the Hub.

"Where is it, Jess?" Matt's voice came over the Com system just as Becker entered the Hub.

"City centre, Trafalgar Square." Jess announced.

"How many people in the area?" Becker asked, slowing down and putting an arm around the back of Jess' chair.

"Right now, none. There were about fifty before the anomaly opened." Was it just him, or did she sound really icy today? And Becker may have been imagining it, but didn't she usually lean back in her chair? _'No time to think about it now,'_ he told himself. He picked two black boxes and an earpiece up off Jess' desk and sprinted out of the Hub after Matt, meeting West on her way out of the Armoury. He exchanged one black box and the earpiece for an EMD rifle and they were ready to go.

"Jess, do you have CCTV in the area?" Matt asked a split second before Becker did.

"Confirmed. So far no sign of an incursion." There it was again, the iciness. Jess was clearly having a bad day. Becker put it out of his mind and climbed into the truck behind Matt's, put it in gear and followed him out of the car park, absently noticing Abby and Connor arguing in the other truck. He had learnt to tune out their almost non-stop bickering. Beside him, West snorted with laughter, only to shrug at Becker's inquisitive glance. She was grinning all the way to the anomaly site.

Jess jumped when the ADD went off, something that rarely happened anymore due to how used to it she was. But this time she had been distracted, and as a result she nearly fell off her chair. She recovered before Matt arrived in the Hub asking where the anomaly was. She heard Becker's heavy-footed arrival as she answered.

"City centre," she said and waited for the ADD to give her a more precise location. "Trafalgar Square."

"How many people in the area?" Becker's smooth voice came from behind her and she felt his arm snake around the back of her chair. Usually Jess loved that he did this. It made her think that maybe he might return the feelings she had for him. But now that she knew that he didn't, it only angered her. She leaned forwards in her chair, not backwards into his arm like she usually did.

"Right now, none. There were about fifty before the anomaly opened." Jess allowed open hostility to creep into her voice and was satisfied to note Becker's hesitation before scooping a black box off the desk and running out after Matt without another word, leaving her with a huge grin on her face that she had made him feel bad. Maybe. Her eyes fell on the bank of black boxes on her desk and the satisfaction disappeared as she realised there was one more missing than there should have been. Another earpiece too.

"Jess," Matt. "Do you have CCTV in the area?" Jess' irritation made itself apparent once again.

"Confirmed. So far, no sign of an incursion." So Becker didn't feel it necessary to ask her the important questions anymore? That was fine. He was probably too busy making cow-eyes at that new Sargent of his. But that was okay. Jess wasn't going to be bothered by it.

Abby and Connor soon began a heated discussion that started with Connor complaining that his seatbelt was too tight, and ended fifteen minutes later with Abby telling him that he would be doing the washing up for a month if he didn't shut up. Jess silently agreed with her. She could only put up with Connor's whinging when she was in a good mood.

By the time Connor had been silenced, the team had reached the anomaly. Matt jumped out of his truck first, followed by Connor who immediately began setting up the locking device. Becker's truck skidded to a halt beside Matt's and five black- clad figures emerged, all of whom headed straight for the gun cases strapped to the back. Jess watched two more people get out of Matt's truck, the latter of whom was instantly cornered by Becker.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded.

"What do you think I am doing here?" Emily's stern voice reached Jess through the Com system. Becker didn't seem to have an answer to this, which made Jess chuckle at the image of Emily staring Becker down. She watched Connor lock the anomaly and, for a whole five minutes, nothing went wrong.

Jess saw it first. Something moved in the corner of the CCTV feed, so far in the corner that at first she thought she was imagining it. But she didn't want to take the risk.

"Matt, I think I see something. North-East corner of the Square." Jess watched the whole team besides Connor and Sargent West advance in the direction she had indicated, Becker in front and the rest following in a flat line. Jess' eyes went to Sargent West, standing by the anomaly with Connor. She was now convinced that there was something going on between her and Becker; the way he had been acting over the last few days confirmed it. Usually it took him weeks to get over the death of one of his men, but just that morning he had been strolling through the ARC with a smile on his face. Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course, it was just odd. For one thing, Becker didn't stroll. _'Pack it in, Jessica,'_ she told herself. _'You'll miss something important at this rate.'_

No sooner were the words fully formed in her brain, Jess saw again what the team were trying to track down. It was behind them now, on the other side of the Square.

"Matt, behind you!" she cried. The team whirled, EMDs raised, and then froze. A whistle shot through the Com system.

"Dios mío," someone said. It was a voice she didn't recognise. Sargent West.

"How did it get over there?" Connor whined. "It's huge!" And sure enough, huge it was. Becker, the tallest member of the team, didn't even come up to the top of its leg. The rest of it was a round, feathered body with larger, wing-like feathers on its arms and a fan of them on its tail that served no purpose other than show. It also had a huge, bird-like beak, and stood over eight metres long.

"Gigantoraptor. Definitely not a herbivore," Connor squeaked, sounding like he needed to use the toilet quite desperately. Jess didn't blame him. The team took up a ready stance in the centre of the Square, unsure of what to do. There were nine humans against one positively enormous and deadly dinosaur. The odds didn't look promising.

Something Jess didn't pick up on the Com system caused Sargent West to turn, EMD raised in the opposite direction to everyone else. She tapped Connor on the shoulder and pointed. Connor's eyes widened as he took in what she was indicating and he squeaked in terror once again. This caught the rest of the team's attention, and Becker turned to see what the problem was.

"Jess," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "There are two of them." Jess silently cursed the limited CCTV in the area.

"Why do the dinosaurs always have to find the blind spots in Traffic Control?" she mumbled to herself.

"What was that Jess?" Connor asked.

"Nothing." she said quickly.

"If anyone has a plan," Matt said slowly, "Now would be a great time to share."

**_Review Please!_**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

'No, of course it's not going to be that simple,' West thought, cursing her earlier naivety. It was a quality she thought she had drilled out of herself a long time ago, but apparently London was making her soft. She watched the gigantic dinosaur wriggle its tail feathers, taking out the top three floors of an office block as it did so. They fell to the floor with a crash and a small mushroom cloud of dust and paper, capturing the raptor's attention for a whole five seconds before it lost interest. West thanked whatever Gods there may or may not be that it was a Sunday.

A crumbling noise, not dissimilar to that of rocks falling down a steep hill, came from behind her and she turned, not even considering the possibilities. She was pretty sure, however, that if she had bothered to make a list, a second Gigantoraptor wouldn't have been on it. She tapped the person standing next to her; Connor; and he also turned, uttering a quiet whimper that got the attention of the rest of the team.

West was barely aware of Becker telling Jess that there were now two creatures as her mind raced ahead of the situation. They needed to get the raptors back through the anomaly before it closed, but they needed to do it quietly and without any fuss, otherwise Lester would be on their backs for months because of a re-construction bill. An idea came to her.

"If anyone has any ideas, now would be a good time to share." The rest of the team said nothing. West realised that although her plan was stupidly dangerous, the team's silence said that it was the only thing they had. The risk, therefore, was irrelevant.

"I have something," West announced slowly, making sure it worked in her head first. "But I doubt you're going to like it."

The team listened. None of them seemed particularly happy about it and Matt looked like he was close to saying no, but the undeniable fact still remained: they had no time, and no other alternative available to them. So it was agreed; they'd give it a try.

West sent Abby, Matt and Becker's three men to the tops of the nearby buildings and positioned herself some way in front of the anomaly, running the scenarios through her head all the while. In theory, the plan was simple and easy to execute. In practice, there was just too much that could go wrong.

'She's completely insane,' Becker thought to himself as he listened to West's plan. She had just got to the part where she allows two, many-tonned, prehistoric creatures to chase her towards a time portal to an era billions of years in the Earth's history and, to quote her words exactly, "Jumps out of the way just before they get there." It was, Becker thought, completely ridiculous.

"And you're sure this is going to work?" Matt asked, his expression mirroring Becker's thoughts.

"Not entirely, no." West informed them. "But what else do we have?" She stood in the centre of the little circle they'd formed, staring at Matt with one eyebrow raised a micro-fraction above the other, daring him to say no to this. Matt turned to Becker and silently asked his opinion.

"It's insanity," he replied. "But," his deep-threaded sense of Mission Before the Man kicked in and made him reconsider. "It's a lot better than allowing them to rampage through half of central London before the British Army arrives." The last part he said slowly, carefully, knowing that he was signing West's death warrant as he did so. And probably Connor's and his own as well. After what seemed like an age, Matt nodded and the team grimly dispersed. Becker caught up with West.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked, trying to make the concern he was feeling stay out of his voice. He needn't have bothered even worrying.

"I've done this before you know," she grinned, checking over her EMD. "Okay I was jumping through a fifth-floor window away from a very angry dog and I had given it no thought whatsoever beforehand, but the general idea is the same."

"Do you have any idea how much that doesn't reassure me?" Becker wondered with a resigned sigh. West's grin only broadened.

"The chances of this plan working one hundred per cent to the letter are about a thousand to one. However, the chances of this plan going just a little pear-shaped and still getting the dinosaurs through the anomaly are about forty-sixty, so you have absolutely nothing to worry about."

"Where did you get those figures?"

"I made them up. Now can we get going?" she looked at him expectantly and Becker sighed again. There was going to be no getting through to her on the dangers of this, he could tell. Before he could tell her not to do anything really stupid, Matt's voice came over the Com system.

"We're all ready up here. It's your call, West." With a final clap on the shoulder, West jogged over to her position in front of the anomaly and raised her EMD. Becker got out of the way; not so far that West wouldn't be able to throw him her EMD, but far enough that he hopefully wouldn't get trampled by a raptor. One look at their feet told him that he did not want to be anywhere near them when they started running. Connor, pale and wide-eyed, knelt with one hand on the locking device behind the anomaly. Becker didn't envy him in the slightest.

"No point delaying any further," West said eventually with a nonchalance that could not have been real. After a moment, a single EMD blast fell from the rooftops onto a raptor, quickly followed by another before they were raining on them from all sides but one.

"Remember not to hit their heads. We don't want them knocking the buildings down." West reminded them over the sudden noise. The raptors were feeling it; they snapped as high up as they could but even at their great height they couldn't surpass human engineering.

As per the plan, the Raptors tried to get away from the small white bursts of energy and made their way towards the anomaly, fluttering their arm feathers and making odd gargling sounds at each other as they did so. When West was sure they could see her, leaving it a little close for Becker's liking, she fired.

The first one she hit immediately lowered its head and waved the fan of feathers on its tail at her, obviously as some kind of threat. The second raptor hesitated and gargled a few times at the first before doing the same. Shots continued to batter them from the rooftops and West fired again, this time gaining more of a reaction. The raptors roared in unison and, after a final flourish, charged. West managed to fit one more headshot in to each creature before her EMD flew through the air and she sprinted towards the anomaly. Connor's hand slammed down and the anomaly sprang open. West slid to an abrupt stop in front of it and turned to face the raptors. They were still coming at her, but to everyone's horror, they had changed direction and were now coming at her from the sides rather than head-on, leaving her no escape route.

Becker saw realisation cross West's face as she tried desperately to think of a way out and his hand clenched into a fist at his side. His heart pounded in his chest and he had to fight the urge to take a shot at the raptors, distracting them from West. But he couldn't do that. They had a plan to correspond to.

"Matt, hold your fire!" he yelled into the Com system, but it was too late. The raptors saw West as the threat and were not going to stop until she had been eliminated. Her words repeated themselves in Becker's head: "The chances of this plan going just a little pear-shaped and still getting the dinosaurs through the anomaly are about forty-sixty..." He should have known she wasn't factoring her own survival into those statistics. West closed her eyes and, in a desperate attempt at self-preservation, stepped backwards. Becker let out an involuntary shout as she disappeared, taking the raptors with her two seconds later.

Jess pressed a few keys that cleverly directed all traffic in the area away from the Square and leant back in her chair. She was already regretting being so cool towards Becker, and she missed the feeling of his arms around her shoulders. She hadn't realised she was so addicted to those little things that he did. Relationship with West or not, her feelings toward him hadn't changed.

Becker's voice, suddenly loud in her ear made her jump out of her seat for the second time that day.

"Matt, hold your fire!" he yelled, causing Jess to sit bolt upright and fix her undivided attention on the screen; Becker didn't shout like that unless something very bad was happening. Sure enough, West had been backed up against the anomaly, and the jumpy CCTV gave Jess a not perfect but good enough view of the two Gigantoraptors sprinting at her from the sides. She couldn't run anymore, as had been her plan. All she could do now was step back into the anomaly.

The silence left by the raptors' disappearance was shockingly loud and left a ringing in Jess' ears. It was broken, albeit only slightly, by Connor.

"The anomaly's closing," he said. He sounded scared. Jess realised he was staring at Becker and her own gaze drifted to him too. He was standing motionless, EMD raised and pointed at the anomaly, his back to the CCTV camera so Jess couldn't see his expression. Matt, Abby and the three ARC security members entered the screen and stood silent, also watching Becker. Jess knew why. They were all worried about what he might do if the anomaly closed and West wasn't on the right side. The anomaly flickered and began to fluctuate. Still no one said a word but they were all thinking the same thing. If West hadn't come back by now, she had been caught by the raptors. There was no other explanation for why she was taking so long.

The silence dragged on for the longest three minutes of Jess' life before the anomaly gave a final flicker and then disappeared altogether. Jess couldn't watch. As much as she despised West for getting between her and Becker, she didn't want to see his reaction. He would be devastated...

"What the hell took you so long?" Becker's voice thundered through Jess' earpiece and her head snapped back up to the camera feed. West was... She'd made it back. Jess was too overwhelmed to even be confused at how she'd done it.

"Sorry about that," West apologised, breathing heavily. "The anomaly opened right on the edge of a very steep hill."

"Remind me never to agree to one of your plans again," Matt said with relief, getting a laugh from the team.

"And the raptors?" Becker asked.

"No idea," West reported, no longer out of breath. "But if they're not here anymore I'm going to assume they went through after me. See, Captain. Forty-sixty."

"Don't ever do that again," Becker ordered. West chuckled and slung a backpack over one shoulder. Jess hadn't realised she'd been carrying it before. "Jess, give the all clear. And start spinning something clever about the destroyed buildings, will you?" Jess didn't think that worthy of a response. She disconnected the CCTV link, already fuming once again at West, and began re-routing traffic.

"Uh, guys, tourists at that-way o'clock." Connor said, pointing.

"Why is it always the Japanese?" West wondered in an undertone.

"Just walk away everyone," Matt told them.

"And don't agree to take pictures. We'll be here all day." Abby continued.

"What, take pictures or have pictures taken?" West joked.

"Both."

A roar interrupted their banter, causing the whole team to stop talking, and then a scream. Jess hastily pressed buttons, trying to get her video feed back up.

"Guys, talk to me, what's going on?" she pleaded into the Com system. No one answered for a few moments and the speakers filled with EMD shots and more screaming. "Repeat, what's happening down there? I've lost CCTV... Matt? Becker? Anyone?" Jess was only greeted with static. Finally, her frantic button-pressing was rewarded, but only for a second. The screen was filled with the face of another Gigantoraptor, a juvenile, before it too went to static and Jess was left blind and deaf.

"Would someone like to explain to me why my very important weekly conversation with the Minister was just interrupted by that annoying beeping you get when the phone lines have been disconnected?" Jess groaned inwardly. She was far too busy to be dealing with Lester at a time like this.

"I don't know, I've just lost the team too," she didn't even turn away from her search for another CCTV camera in the area.

"When was this?" Lester appeared at her shoulder.

"About a minute ago. They gave me the all clear but then some tourists showed up, and I couldn't get the CCTV back in time until another raptor destroyed the camera."

"Another raptor? There were more?"

"So it would seem." Lester was silent for a moment.

"You keep trying on the CCTV. I'll find someone to figure out our sudden communications problem." He strolled off, mobile phone still in one hand. Jess found another camera that watched over Trafalgar Square but that too was only displaying static. She hoped they got Coms back up quickly otherwise they'd have the entire London police force arriving at the anomaly site, and with more raptors in the area that was not going to end well. A third and fourth camera also came up blank, and Jess was getting frantic.

She pressed more keys to direct her back to the CCTV mainframe and her computer froze.

"Not now, please not now..." she begged it. It seemed to respond to her wishes, although the next message it gave her wasn't nearly as encouraging.

_System cannot connect; no signal._

"No signal? What do you mean 'no signal'? You always have signal... Lester!" she shouted over her shoulder, hoping her boss hadn't gone too far down the corridor to hear her. Running footsteps approached her chair and he reappeared behind her.

"What..? Oh." he took in the message on the screen. "How is that possible?"

"I don't know. This thing is connected to its own satellite, there is no way anything can be intercepting it." As the words left her mouth, a possibility came to her. "Unless..."

"Unless?" Lester picked up on her hesitation.

"Unless someone is deliberately blocking the signal." The Hub was silent for a lot longer than Jess felt comfortable with.

"Can anyone do that?" Lester asked eventually.

"With the right technology you can do anything from your garden shed. You don't need to be a NASA scientist; you just have to have the brainpower."

"But who would want to block us off? Who even knows about us?"

"I don't have all the answers, Lester; I'm just making educated guesses."

"Right. I'll get on to Whitehall... No I won't, the phones don't work. Okay, I will drive to Whitehall and sort this out. I will be back in no more than two hours." He turned and strode smartly up the stairs and into the lift, leaving Jess wondering what on Earth she was going to do until he came back.

Becker turned in the direction Connor's gloved finger was indicating and smirked. Three Japanese tourists, a man, a woman and a young girl, were talking in excitement at the sight of nine people with guns.

"Why is it always the Japanese?" West wondered in an undertone. Becker's smirk widened.

"Just walk away everyone," Matt told them.

"And don't agree to take pictures. We'll be here all day." Abby continued.

"What, take pictures or have pictures taken?" West joked.

"Both." The two of them laughed and headed off towards the pickups. Becker was glad West was getting along so well with the rest of the team; it just made things a whole lot easier.

A roar bellowed behind them and the whole team turned in microseconds, those still with EMDs raising them. Becker felt himself go numb as a Gigantoraptor, smaller than the ones they had just been dealing with, bent down and snapped up the Japanese man. His scream stayed in Becker's head long after he had become incapable of sounding it. They had never even thought to look for more; they had all assumed that if there had been any more creatures they would have all been together. He heard West shouting orders behind him but all he could do was watch as the Gigantoraptor, joined now by three more all of different sizes, bit down on the woman. One of its friends picked up the other half of her body, and a third went for the girl.

Something hit him hard across the face and brought his attention back to the present. West was standing next to him, a cold fire in her eyes. He had a feeling she had just slapped him.

"Come on!" she shouted, and Becker looked beyond her to where the rest of the team were running for cover. He followed her, still completely numb, into one of the terraced houses just off Trafalgar Square. She turned back at the entrance to prop the door back up against the frame and he went into the front room.

"Matt? Matt, come in. Connor? Abby? Jess, respond. Can anyone hear me?" West muttered a long string of words in Spanish that Becker didn't think were all that polite. "Coms are down." she informed him, coming into the room. He ran a hand over his face and turned towards the window, taking a few deep breaths as he did so. Three innocent people had just died because of their indolence, three people that hadn't needed to die... _'Don't think about it now,'_ he told himself. _'Fight first, mourn later.'_

"What the hell was that?" Becker turned to face West standing across the room from him with a confused expression on her face. He sighed.

"We should have checked..."

"Yeah, you're right, we should have," she unfolded her arms and stepped towards him, her voice getting progressively louder as she continued, "But we didn't. And there is nothing we can do about it so behaving like a delusional _nabo_ isn't going to get anything done."

"Do you think I don't know that?"

"I'm starting to get the impression." Becker turned away from her again. She just didn't get it... "Look, people died and you're upset. I get it, really, I do. But don't you think we can prevent more people from dying more effectively if we go out there and find the rest of the team rather than sitting in here feeling sorry for ourselves?" Looking back at her, Becker saw that her coldness had gone and she was giving him a 'you know I'm right really' look.

"You're right. Sorry. Do you know where everyone else went?"

"Matt, Abby and Connor are about four or five doors up from us, I don't know about Hadley, Pitters or Larton."

"Have you got an EMD?"

"No, you had it. And then you dropped it."

"Yes, I did. I suppose we'll just have to do without." They went back through to the hall and West carefully removed the door from its balanced position against the frame; she had smashed it clean off its hinges when they'd come in.

"A delusional what?" Becker suddenly inquired.

"Hm? Oh, turnip. Delusional turnip."

"Right. Thanks."

"No problem."

"On three. One, two… Three!" They sprinted out of the house and down the street, Becker following close behind West. A Gigantoraptor looked up at them and began chasing after them, clearly thinking this was a whole lot of fun. West suddenly dropped and Becker thought she had stumbled but she was up again in less than a second and handing him an EMD. He had to admit it, she was good. There was no way he would have seen that. She pulled him through another doorway and he fell off balance, landing heavily on something inside another house. EMD shots, some of them his own, blasted through the doorway until the raptor turned and fled.

"Becker," Connor gasped from underneath him, "You can get off me now." Becker rolled over and Connor, suddenly able to breathe again, sucked in a long, panting breath.

"Have any of you been able to raise Jess?" Matt asked immediately.

"No. My guess is the whole Com system is down," West told him.

"So we have no way of knowing if backup is on the way or not, great."

"Matt, the raptors have taken out all the CCTV cameras I can see from here." Abby said from the front room. "And they seem to have taken everything surrounding them out as well. There are four of them, juveniles, ranging from half to a quarter of the size of the adults."

"Have you got sights on the others?"

"No... Yes. I have." Becker didn't like the tone in Abby's voice and joined her at the window. What he saw made him suddenly need to sit down. Two of the four raptors were enjoying snacking on Larton and Hadley. The other two, the biggest of the group, were fighting over Pitters. Becker couldn't actually tell that it was him anymore. He closed his eyes and put his head in his hands, fighting nausea. He had known those three men for a long time. Larton had been in his class at Sandhurst. When he looked up again, the rest of the team were dishing out EMDs and formulating some general plan of how to get back to the trucks. They were all deliberately paying no attention to him, all of them except West. She stared at him, holding his gaze, making sure he was fit for more action. He nodded once, a gesture she returned before turning back to Matt. Becker stood up and joined them.

"So we just have to make sure we get there as fast as possible, and no driving off without anyone," Matt was saying. "Once we get there, stun the raptors, then Connor, Abby and I will get back to the ARC while Becker and West stay here to watch them. Any questions?"

"Yeah, I have one," Connor announced. "What happens if we get back to where we left the cars and they're not actually there anymore?"

"Then we run like hell," West declared before Matt had a chance. Connor didn't look reassured.

"Good luck everyone." With those final words of encouragement, the team headed for the door.

**So yeah, Chapter Two. **

**Please let me know what you think. I am loving this fic but that doesn't mean anyone else is.**

**So please review!  
><strong>


	3. Chapter 3

**Huge thank you to Andrewleepotts and lezzles1956 for their reviews (sorry if anyone else did and I missed you out; even bigger thank you to you!) And also thank you to everyone who faved this story! I love you all!  
>So sorry about the wait, I understand fully if anyone thought I'd died or something. But no. Please enjoy chapter three!<strong>

** Chapter Three**

"I was thinking," Connor piped up. West groaned inwardly. She had already learnt that whenever he said that, he was about to say something really silly. "Won't the owners of this place notice that we've just kinda gone and destroyed their front door?"

"I doubt it," Matt said. West barked a laugh at Connor's expression of confusion.

"Whoever owns this fine house either ran off screaming when they saw the enormous creatures outside, or they are on holiday in Greece somewhere, it being the middle of July and all."

"Right. So we're not going to get sued for vandalism or anything?"

"Connor," Abby said with a hint of impatience. "Shut up."

"What? It's a valid…" he caught the looks the rest of the team were giving him and theatrically snapped his mouth shut. Grinning, Becker carefully lowered the front door onto the royal purple carpet-one that clashed horribly with the flowered wallpaper-and stood, EMD raised, with his back against the wall. West mirrored his action on the other side of the door frame. Becker looked around the whole team, gauging their readiness, and began to count down on his fingers. Three…two…one. Becker tan out first. West followed him instantly and ran along the road at a crouch, keeping low and close to the wall. The first juvenile Gigantoraptor came into view immediately. Not wasting any time, West fired. Her shot hit the side of its head and it let out a high-pitched keening sound, similar to that of the adults. A second, third, fourth, fifth shot landed on the same juvenile, and with a sickening thud, it hit the floor, unconscious except for the occasional twitch.

"One down, three to go." West declared with far too much enthusiasm.

"That was the small one," Matt announced. "The others are likely to be more cautious."

"On your left!" Abby screeched, opening fire on the second juvenile. In the time it took West to turn, Abby and Becker had grounded the dinosaur. It had taken twice as many shots as the first, and it wasn't even the biggest one.

"We left the trucks this way," Becker lead the way down the rubble-strewn road, taking care to avoid the streams of water sprouting from the ground where the fountains had once been. Miraculously, the statue still stood in the centre, fully intact except for a few chips in the stone. The air was filled with an eerie silence that made West's skin crawl; there were two more dinosaurs somewhere around. They should be making a lot more noise.

"Maybe they've gone home," Connor whispered.

"How?" West was incredulous. "Their anomaly closed. No, they're around here somewhere."

"Are your Spidey Senses telling you that, West, or are you psychic?"

"Neither actually Connor, I'm sensible."

"Or paranoid."

"Whatever."

"Will you two be quiet?" Matt snapped. "We're supposed to be the ones with the element of surprise here." West was tempted to tell him to be quiet too but she bit that remark back. She was getting edgy with tension. That was all.

The team stopped in front of the South African High Commission building and Becker, face devoid of any emotion whatsoever, pointed.

"That's where the trucks are." The rest of the team followed his finger. Sure enough, the two black ARC pickup trucks were sitting, right where they had left them, in the middle of the street, about fifty metres away from the team. Between them, however, stood the other two Gigantoraptors.

"Options." Matt requested.

"We could go around," Abby supplied.

"It would take too long and they might see us and run off, or worse, try and eat us."

"We could just shoot them," Becker mused. Matt's expression clearly told the team what he thought of THAT plan.

"A distraction. Then shoot them," West said.

"Bearing in mind what happened last time we went through with one of your plans, go on," Matt said cautiously.

"To be honest I hadn't thought any further ahead than that yet," West admitted. "But really, there's only one option. Someone's going to have to be the bait." Matt sighed, thinking this through.

"Anyone else have an idea?" he asked, already knowing the answer. No one responded. "Okay. Fine. I'll distract them. West, Becker, you're our best shots, try and take them out before they start eating things again. Abby and Connor, make a break for the trucks." Everyone nodded. Connor looked a little paler than usual and Becker muttered something vague about the two Gigantoraptors' parentage, but the whole team agreed. No signals were needed; Matt sprinted in the general direction of the monument, firing shots at the raptors and yelling at the top of his lungs. West and Becker raised their EMD's in unison and began firing too, and Abby and Connor ran straight for the pickups.

"Concentrate on the small one," Becker told West and she switched her target. The young raptor, under fire from all three active EMDs at once, only managed a few steps before falling to the ground. As the bulk of its form made contact, hundreds of shards of detritus flew into the air, hurtling outwards at a fantastic rate. West covered her face with her sleeve and felt bits of stone rebound off her arm. She heard Becker suck in a breath and turned to see him drop a piece of glass the size of her hand to the floor. Half of it was dyed a brilliant red, and the right sleeve of his jacket was already darkening. Before she could ask him about it, the second Raptor charged at them. Sensing that it was earning itself more pain from one direction than the other, it swung its head at Becker and West, missing only by a few centimetres. Its beak crashed into the stone pillars behind them, getting stuck in the intricately carved masonry. As it thrashed its head around trying to escape, the tell-tale crumbling of cracking stone echoed through the air and sent warning bells ringing in West's head. Beside her, Becker began firing at the Raptor, using its momentary distraction as an invitation to bring it down. His efforts only made the Gigantoraptor thrash harder.

"Don't!" West yelled. "It's going to bring the whole building down!" He stopped, but it was already too late. With one final jerk, the Raptor broke free, and sent a cascade of car-sized pieces of stone and plasterboard raining onto the two of them.

It had been three hours. Three whole ours of boring, monotonous waiting, and Jess was about to go completely crazy. Not only had Lester been gone a whole hour longer than he had said he would be, but she hadn't had anything back from the team either. That did nothing but add to her restlessness. She wasn't used to knowing nothing.

As if on cue, a single set of footsteps began thundering down the corridor, and at first Jess thought the Dracorex had escaped again. Then Connor slid to a stop beside her, panting hard.

"Matt told me to... get back here... see what's going on..." Jess waited until he had regained more control over his breathing before asking him to continue. "The whole Com system went down and none of our phones are working. Matt told me to get back here and see what the problem is."

"I have no idea. One minute I was halfway through re-routing the traffic system, then nothing. The ADD won't connect to anything other than the ARC's internal network, and none of the other computers in the building will even get internet access. Lester went to Whitehall three hours ago. What about the rest of the team?" Jess looked expectantly up at Connor. He was her only link to the team. Her only link to Becker. His hesitant silence wasn't at all encouraging.

"One of the Gigantoraptors knocked down the South African High Commissions Building. As far as we know, Becker and West were standing right next to it when it fell. With the Coms down, we haven't heard anything from them." His voice was completely devoid of emotion, as if he hadn't quite worked out how to handle it yet either. Jess felt like she was about to cry. "But that doesn't mean they're not perfectly fine and waiting for us to come and get them, right?" he was clearly trying to cheer her up. "Now let's have a look at this." With huge effort, Jess shifted her worry to the back of her mind and showed him the message that was still, infuriatingly, flashing on the screen. _Cannot connect; no signal. _Connor frowned and leaned over Jess' shoulder, tapping codes into the keypad at a lightning rate. After a minute he stopped and straightened up.

"Someone's blocking the signal from the ARC satellite," he said simply.

"That's what I thought, but who could do that?"

"Well anyone really. The question," He leaned over Jess again. "Is how to get it un-blocked. Whoever is doing this is good; they've isolated all our phones and the Com system as well as the independent network connection, so they obviously know who we are and have a specific reason for doing it. But do they know about..." Connor paused again as his task required more concentration than he could spare for talking. "...This?" He hit the enter key with a flourish, and a second later, every single light in the ARC went out.

"Umm... Connor..." Jess began, but he held up a finger.

"Wait for it," he muttered, staring at the screen of the ADD. Ten more seconds passed, and power returned to the system. Jess suppressed the urge to shout with glee; she didn't know what that had just accomplished. Connor, on the other hand, had no such reservations. He yelled, triumphant, and punched the air with one fist. The ADD sprang into life, sending reams of text scrolling down the screen, and then a status bar popped up.

"I am brilliant," Connor declared, an enormous grin spreading across his face.

"What did you just do?"

"Ever since Phillip had control of Lockdown back when the Beetle Incident happened, I encoded a backup override into the system. Basically it shuts everything down and re-loads it to the specifications I programmed into it at the time, so if you've made some important upgrades to this thing since then you'll have to do them again. This won't stop whoever was blocking us from doing it again, but it should give us Coms back. And if they do cut us off again, we can just repeat the whole process." Jess didn't wait any longer than the word Coms. She hit the speaker button and started talking the second Connor closed his mouth.

"Becker? Jess to Becker, do you read?" She left him a few seconds to reply, but nothing came. She started to panic again. "Becker, please respond."

"Jess? _Gracias a Dios._ Jess, it's West. We need a medic down here now. It's Becker, he's..." The Com signal went to static for a few seconds. "Jess, do you copy?"

"I copy, West. Medics are on the way." At her words, three people ran out of the Hub. Jess took a moment to calm herself down. Becker was hurt. The urgency in West's voice suggested it was serious. Connor had said the team couldn't reach them. Becker might die. She shut her eyes to prevent the tears that had been welling up since the system went down from spilling over. She was tempted to ask West to repeat what she had said when the signal failed, but she was interrupted.

"Jess, can you get CCTV back up around here?" Matt's voice was as unemotional as usual, but there was a certain underlying tension in it that told her even he was having difficulty coping with the situation.

"I can try. Hold on." Jess had to go through fifteen different cameras to find one that actually gave her a feed, but even then it was temperamental and had a habit of going blank for seconds at a time. The carnage the Raptors had created was enormous. Jess' eyes immediately went to where she knew the SAHC should have been, and sure enough it had been replaced with a pile of rubble.

"We need some heavy digging equipment down here, immediately." Matt didn't elaborate; he didn't need to. Jess wasted no time in getting on the phone to the local building contractors.

"Are you alright?" Becker helped West sit up while she coughed the dust out of her lungs. Once she'd finished, she delved into her bag; which had somehow managed to stay on her back the whole time; and downed half a bottle of water before offering the rest to Becker. He declined; there was no telling how long they were going to be down here. They should preserve their resources.

"I'm fine," West replied. "How about you? That looked pretty nasty."

"It was just a scratch, its fine," Becker insisted. West raised an eyebrow but said nothing more on the matter, even though he knew she wasn't buying it. He didn't know what she'd seen and he was determined to make sure that was as little as possible. Besides, it didn't hurt much. Yet. The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes, broken only by West rummaging around in her bag again.

"Mind your eyes," she told him. He did as instructed, and seconds later the tiny cave they were sitting in was filled with light. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust properly but when they did, he saw that West was now sporting a strap-on head torch.

"I hope you brought spare batteries for that," he commented, shifting his weight onto a more comfortable piece of plaster board. She chuckled, although Becker had no idea how that was even remotely funny.

"It runs off my body heat," she explained. "So long as I'm not dead, we won't need batteries for it."

"That's... clever," Becker eventually decided. He hadn't thought that kind of technology existed outside of Connor's sci-fi movies, but what would he know? The finer points of modern technology often escaped him.

"Here, eat this," West handed him what looked like a granola bar but the wrapper was covered in Spanish writing so he couldn't tell.

"Shouldn't we be conserving our resources until we actually need them?" Becker asked.

"Well, probably, but if we don't eat until we have to, we will never be at one hundred per cent, so why not? And besides, I don't think we're going to run out."

"What did you pack for, an Arctic expedition?" this was another thing she seemed to find extremely amusing.

"I prepare for every eventuality," she said matter-of-factly. "And in this line of work, that includes getting marooned on the other side of an anomaly, so yes, I suppose I did. Now eat; you're injured, you need to keep your nutrient levels up."

"I told you, it's not that bad."

"Eat it anyway. It's not going to kill you." Becker shrugged and bit into the bar. Her logic was undeniable; he had to hand it to her. Another few minutes of silence passed, during which the only sounds that filled the cave were those of West's constant rummaging and Becker's own chewing. It wasn't that bad, actually, the granola.

"Pass me that rock by your foot, will you?" she asked, her voice half muffled by the rucksack. Becker, absent-mindedly munching on the granola, reached down and picked up the rock in question with his right hand.

As soon as his grip tightened around it, a numbing pain lanced through his arm and he hissed involuntarily, dropping the rock as he did so. The light from West's torch was on him instantly.

"You did that deliberately," he said with a defeated sigh.

"Yes I did. Now let me look at that." she climbed over his legs without even waiting for a reply and knelt down next to him, a civilian first-aid kit in one hand. Becker knew there was no point in trying to stop her and was finally starting to admit that maybe he shouldn't have tried to hide it after all. She slowly rolled up the sleeve of his jacket; it was already soaked in blood. Her eyebrows furrowed as she revealed the dirty, bloody mess that was now his right arm.

_ "Mierda,"_ she muttered. Becker grabbed a mental hold on the sound and replayed it over and over in his mind, trying to find something to think about that would distract him, even just a little, from his pain.

"Do I even want to know what that means?" he asked. Even to him his voice sounded strained.

"No." she didn't look at him but the tone with which she had said that one word gave him the impression she was not particularly pleased with him at that moment. "You are an idiot, do you know that? A first class, Royal Idiot of the highest order." Yep. Definitely not pleased. "Ten minutes ago, I would have been able to bandage this up and it would have been fine, but now..." Her sentence trailed off and Becker risked a glance down at his arm. And then wished he hadn't.

"It's bigger than I remember," he joked, trying not to force himself to consider the details. Truthfully, it was actually a lot bigger than the last time he had looked at it, but that had been at least half an hour ago and a building had fallen on him since then. Now, the skin around it was a bright shade of red and considerably warmer than the rest of him. Dirt and bits of fluff from his jacket had gotten into the cut itself. He was only just realising the implications of this; that cut was deep, he could easily get blood poisoning from it, and if he didn't get it cleaned up quickly enough, he could die. The thought struck him like a sledgehammer and he was inclined to agree with West: he was a complete and utter idiot.

She began cleaning his arm with what looked and felt like a piece of kitchen paper, running it up and down his arm in an attempt to clean off the worst of it. Becker wondered if there wasn't a better, less painful way of doing it. He also wished she would start talking again. Now that the adrenaline from their earlier fight with the Gigantoraptors was wearing off, he was feeling everything, amplified.

"So how come you're so very Spanish, yet you have a surname like West?" He had moved past the fact that her personal life was none of his business and was focusing all his attention on the conversation.

"My father was British," she said simply. "I did originally have my mother's name but... Let's just say she and I don't get along anymore."

"What was it?" he inquired. She chuckled.

"I was born Teresa Catalina Ortega. That's about at generically Spanish as you can really get."

"Why did you change it?" He thought about telling her he thought her name was beautiful but he had a feeling that would just make it awkward.

"I moved in with my brother, and we were far less susceptible to Granny Gossip if we had the same name. So I changed mine to our father's." She didn't look up from her work and her voice contained no emotion whatsoever. Becker sensed he was on dangerous ground asking so much about her, but he was beyond that. If she didn't want to tell him she didn't have to; that didn't stop him from asking.

"Why were your names different?" He studied her face as she thought up how she was going to answer. It changed from studied indifference to the look someone might get when they are thinking about something that happened a long time ago. She sighed impatiently before providing him with an answer.

"We were both born in Spain, but my mother divorced my father a few days after I was born and he took Jack back to England with him. I grew up in San Sebastian, up in the North. My mother's way of child upbringing was... Less than particularly warm. I got to seventeen and figured I would go try and find my brother; we'd never met before then and he didn't even know I existed. When I arrived in London I found Jack easily enough, but our father had disappeared a few weeks before. We never found him." She finished, staring at the wall next to Becker's elbow, lost in her own world. Becker didn't know what to say to that. Her story, however vague it might have been, put the complaints he had about his life to shame. "What about you?" she asked before he could think about it for too long. "What's your story?" Becker found himself smiling humourlessly as he thought about it; his family stories that once would have been too uncomfortable for him to talk about now just made him laugh at how childish it all had been.

"Nothing too exciting. I grew up in Hampshire with my dad and two brothers, raced through Sandhurst, did some Spec Ops work for a few years and then got drafted to the ARC. There's nothing more to it really."

"Are you the oldest?" West's question took him by surprise, even though he was kind of expecting her to ask.

"No. I was the middle kid," he was about to go into more detail but she interrupted him.

"Do you still talk to them?" she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees, the light from her head torch casting strange shadows across her face. At his lack of response, she looked up at him, her eyes begging for an answer.

"Not really," he said, choosing his words carefully in order to accurately describe the teetering relationship the three of them shared. "Tom, my older brother, was born nine years before I was so we were never really that close. Sam, though, came a year and a half after me. He never... Our mother died giving birth to him. I don't think he ever got over it."

"Did you?" West's sudden ability to pick up on even the smallest hesitations was getting a little irritating.

"I can't remember her; I wasn't even two years old. He never said, but I think Tom blamed Sam for it. I know our dad did."

"What happened to them?"

"I have no idea where Tom is now, something to do with Army Intelligence, I think. And last I heard from Sam he was trying the whole 'Travel the world' thing." Becker allowed himself a laugh.

"How's that funny?"

"It just is. Sammy is a very antisocial person; when he told me about it I thought he was joking." the two of them fell into silence once again, and the lack of conversation brought his thoughts back to the stabbing pain in his arm. He looked down at it, curious. His blood had stained most of the bandage West had put on it not twenty minutes beforehand, and every slight movement of his fingers sent fresh waves of pain coursing through him. He was also starting to get a headache.

"You still got that water?" he asked. Silently and absently, as if she was somewhere else entirely, West passed him the half empty bottle of water. He downed its contents in three swift gulps. It didn't get rid of his headache but it made him feel a little better. "What about you? You said you have a brother."

"Had." she said after a moment's pause. "I had a brother. He died a few months back."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Well, I know that he was doing something undercover in Libya but they won't tell me what he died for. All I know is that he died serving his country, although I find that hard to believe." Her voice trailed off and Becker remembered that letter he had sent to Sargent Grey's family three days ago. He realised that West had just repeated the exact thing he had written to them, and he imagined that this was how they would be feeling right now.

"I'm sorry," it was paltry comfort but it was all he could think of to say.

"Why? You didn't even know him." she didn't lift her gaze but her voice had a steel edge on it. "I'm sorry," she said eventually. "I'm just not used to people showing genuine sympathy."

"Fair enough," Becker shrugged; a gesture that was more painful than it was worth, and yawned widely. He was suddenly exhausted. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that his weariness was down to the slice that glass shard had taken out of him; that he was losing too much blood for his body to compensate for and that he really should not go to sleep at any cost otherwise he wouldn't wake up again. But it was dark, cold, and sleep was just so inviting. And besides, he hadn't actually fostered any hope of the ARC finding them. He didn't even know how much rubble was on top of them, or why they hadn't been crushed when the building fell in the first place. It wouldn't matter then, he reasoned, if he just had a short nap for a while. West would wake him up when the team did eventually show, so he had nothing to worry about.

He hadn't realised he had blacked out until West was shaking him, forcing him awake again. He supressed a childish grumble; he didn't want to be awake, he was just too tired. She was saying something to him now, a look in her eyes of urgency and fear. Fear. One thing he had never thought she would ever show.

"Teresa," he knew he had cut her off, even though he couldn't focus properly on what she was saying. "Make sure the ARC doesn't..." His energy reserves dropped below what was required for speech and his eyelids drooped again. It didn't really matter anyway. She would understand what he meant.

This time he knew he had blacked out; he heard Jess' voice in his ear, calling his name.

**Thanks for staying with me so far. I know I am terrible with speedy updates, but please do leave a review. I do love my reviews. I'm not going to lie and say that the more reviews I get, the faster I'll write because that is a load of bull and we all know it. I will write chapter four as fast as I can, I promise!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry about the wait everyone, but I am an incredibly lazy individual, and I recently discovered Tumblr, which means nothing much will have happened in my life.  
>But now here it is.<br>I would like to thank Prawn Crackers, Beth Becker, Jnevadub232, Mijo54 and Forever-Diamonds for giving me lovely reviews, and also big thank yous to everyone who faved/alerted since chapter 3.  
>I love you all!<strong>

Chapter Four:  
>West lay flat on her back and stared at the ceiling. They were interesting things, ceilings. She had thought it was white when she had first moved in, and had gone on thinking that for a week or so until about three months ago, when she had been told of Jack's death. Then she had begun staring at that ceiling for enormous amounts of time, and she had discovered that it was in fact a very subtle shade of lilac. She liked purple; it was one of those things that she could only really describe as funky, however random a word that may be; and she reasoned that she liked it on her ceiling. The flat was far too boring otherwise.<p>

Of course, another wonder of ceilings was that one could get completely hypnotised by the way the grooves in the paint swirled around each other, and her overactive imagination had come to inform her that whoever had done the paint job may not have been entirely sober. Either that or said painter had just gotten extremely bored with painting in a straight line. But whatever the reason, West thanked them for it. It gave her something interesting to stare at when she couldn't sleep.

She replayed the last few hours over in her head for the nine hundredth time. She and Becker had been sitting in that cave talking away about things she would rather have not thought about, when he had just fallen asleep. West knew better than anyone how important it was for people to stay conscious after sustaining serious injuries. Of course, she had next to no sympathy for him. Lester had told her upon her arrival at the ARC of Becker's self-destructive tendencies. He had told her she was even allowed to order him to the medical wing if the need arose, and he had also said that Becker himself wasn't remotely pleased with the idea.

The ARC team had tunnelled through to their cave half an hour after Coms came back up, during which time West had fed Jess continuous updates on Becker's condition. Jess had kept saying that she was forwarding it through to the medics on the way, but West knew better. She could tell how infatuated Jess was with Becker. Everyone could.

She hadn't seen Jess at all that day. Becker had been rushed straight back to the ARC medical bay and Jess had been there as soon as she had heard them come in. West had been directed towards the medical bay too but if anyone had noticed that she had gone straight home, no one cared about it. Hers were small inconveniences; shrapnel wounds. She could take care of those herself.

She had gone straight back to her flat and showered, intent upon getting as much sleep as possible. But that was evidently not going to happen. She kept thinking about what had happened. It was her plan that the team had been executing, her idea that they had been attempting. She didn't blame herself for what had happened; it wasn't that that was keeping her awake. Becker just reminded her so much of her brother. They both had the same determination, the same stubborn ambition. They even looked similar, although she would never confuse one for the other. She had gotten Jack into similar trouble with her actions and decisions too, and the events of the day had brought back all sorts of memories. This was just the first time all day that she hadn't been too occupied to think about them.

She missed her brother. She missed the things they used to get up to, the things they joked about. The little things that she had hated back when he did them she now missed more than ever, like waking up to find him lying next to her in bed, giving her that sleazy grin of his. She especially missed fighting him. He had taught her everything she knew about street fighting, things that he had learnt from their father, and they used to spend hours a day practicing on each other. They would never actually hurt one another; Jack was too good for her to land any serious blows and he would always play down to her level to stop her getting brain damage or something. Of course, that hadn't stopped him gloating about how much better he was than her.

They had been in Spain before, living in a flat in San Sebastian. Six months ago Jack had insisted she should go back to London, but he had never followed her there. Then three months later she had received a letter from a British military Spec Ops division saying that he had been killed in Libya. She hadn't been upset; she didn't believe it. What would he be doing in Libya? Jack went to places that were of interest to him, and if he had been interested in the goings-on over there, he would have told her. That was the way they worked. So West had figured, out of a whole plethora of possible reasons ranging from a spontaneous explosion to zombie attack, that Jack had died by some other means and someone was trying to cover up his death. That conclusion had upset her. It had taken her longer than she would have liked to get back up on her feet again afterwards but he was her brother; any other reaction would have been considered heartless.

Talking with Becker about Jack that day had brought back some of the things she had felt and thought, like how did he die, when, and more importantly, why? She had dismissed them before because she knew she couldn't find the answers. Jack had had contacts for everything but had deliberately not given any details of them to her, 'for her own safety.' She regretted not pestering him now. She would just have to go back to Spain and look through his stuff until she found anything useful. As much as she hated invading his privacy, it was necessary, and it wasn't as if he would mind...

A buzzing sound interrupted her train of thought. Her phone. At two o'clock in the morning? Really? Who in their right minds would be calling her at this time of day? With a grumble of annoyance she swung her legs off the bed and made her way over to her ARC uniform trousers and felt around in the pockets. She had to stop leaving things in her clothes, she mused. The caller ID told her it was Jess.

"Hello?" she muttered, pressing green.

"Hi, West, it's Jess. Sorry if I woke you, but we've got another anomaly." her voice was so cheery it was actually annoying.

"Where is it?" West sighed, pulling a fresh t-shirt out of the drawer.

"Nowhere heavily populated, a farm near one of the city's suburbs. I'm texting you the co-ordinates now."

"Alright, I'll be there as soon as I can." West, not in the mood for exchanging pleasantries, hung up her mobile and sat heavily back down on her bed. Of course she couldn't chase up her brother's death. She had far too many responsibilities now.

Jess liked being in the ARC in the small hours of the morning. The Hub was quiet and she didn't have to talk to anybody. That was her only complaint about her job. Being Team Coordinator, she had to do a lot of talking, not just in emergencies but to answer questions and make small talk with the staff. As much as she loved a good gossip, there were some times she just wished she could be left alone to think.

This was one such occasion. She knew she wasn't going to get any sleep if she went home, and at least if she stayed here she could keep half an eye on Becker. The medical team had kicked her out saying that he wasn't going anywhere and that she should go home and sleep, but she could tell from their expressions that they didn't expect her to. So instead she had merely gone down the corridor and started logging Matt's mission report into the system.

Jess glanced at the time readout on the ADD and got out of her seat, intending to grab a coffee and check on Becker. She had got into the habit of doing that every hour or so. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew he was absolutely fine, but that didn't stop the rest of her brain worrying. She just needed some assurance every so often that he was okay. That was all.

No sooner had she taken two steps toward the Rec Room did the alarm start blaring. It was even louder at this time of day, Jess reasoned as she ran back towards the desks as fast as she could in her shoes. An anomaly. 'These things have no sense of propriety,' she thought. The ADD fed her the coordinates and she reached for her mobile to call the team. She dialled West first. She sounded irritated but that was understandable considering the time. West hung up and Jess moved on to Matt, and from him to Abby. She hated the anomaly alerts that popped up out of hours. Most of the team didn't have Coms or Black Boxes so they all had to be extra careful, and often the only team member Jess had a line to was Matt. But they managed. They had to; the lives of 7 billion people depended on it.

She waited in the total silence of the ARC for fifteen minutes, during which time she half-heartedly tried to find a camera feed in the area. She didn't, but then again, she hadn't been hopeful. The anomaly had opened up on a farm outside the city; there wasn't going to be anything for her to tap into, other than a private network that she would never gain access to from the ARC. She was tempted in her bored state of mind to call Matt again, just for someone to talk to, but her phone beat her to it. It was West.

"Jess, I'm at the anomaly site," she said without even a hello. "Unless I am very mistaken, there is no anomaly." Jess frowned.

"Are you sure?" It was a stupid question, and she heard West snort.

"Very much so. There is nothing here besides myself, my car and a herd of sheep. I have a feeling that if the anomaly was here, the sheep wouldn't be, and besides, it's pitch dark. I would be able to see it." if she was even trying to keep the sarcastic impatience out of her voice, she was not doing a very good job of it. She sounded like she had better things to be doing at two o'clock in the morning than standing in a field, and wanted Jess to know it.

"Does your car have a radio?" Jess asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"Tune it to channel 87.6 FM."

"Okay..." there was a pause, filled with rustling and the sound of car doors opening and closing. "What am I supposed to be hearing?" West asked.

"There should be some kind of interference, a regular break in the static, something like that."

"Nope, nothing, just boring household white noise." West's voice faded rapidly and Jess' ears were suddenly filled with that same static, so loud that she had to pull the phone away from her ear. As she did so, she heard a crashing sound from underneath her, like something heavy and metal had fallen over. The static was gone from her phone instantly; West had heard it too.

"Jess, what was that?" she demanded, her previous irritation gone from her voice.

"I don't know. It sounded like something fell over in one of the corridors," even as she said it, Jess realised it couldn't have been someone dropping something. It had been too loud for that. "I'm going to have a look."

"Keep the line open." West ordered. Jess didn't argue. Having West on demand, as much as she hated to admit it, was suddenly a very reassuring concept.

Painfully aware of the noise her shoes were making, she made her way as if it were perfectly normal across the Hub towards Lester's office, and from there to the elevator. The wait as it travelled to level 1 was unusually slow, and she was shaking like the proverbial leaf by the time the ride ended. She had to pause twice along the corridor to stop herself falling over due to wobbly knees. When she did finally reach the corridor, though, she saw them instantly.

A group of men were kneeling in front of the door at the other end of the hall, the one that lead out into the loading bay. Jess lurched herself back around the corner with a muffled squeak, and hoped like crazy that no one had heard her as she ran back towards the elevator, shoes now in one hand. Those men were not ARC security, that much was certain. The question was who were they and, probably more importantly, what were they doing breaking into the ARC? And why hadn't the building's security alarms gone off? Were they responsible for the communications problems they had been having? All these plus a million more questions flooded her mind as the elevator rose back to the Hub level. The second the doors opened, she made her way to the utility cupboard opposite Lester's office, hunkered down inside, and closed the door with a satisfying click.

"West," she whispered, putting the phone back to her ear. "Are you still there?"

"I'm still here Jess. What's going on?"

"I... I don't know... Some people... That crash..." Jess could feel the panic rising again.

"Jess, calm down and tell me in short simple words what is going on in there." West's voice was hard and controlled, and Jess tried to channel some of that into herself.

"That crash was a group of people forcing entry to the ARC. It probably hit the wall and..." she didn't finish her sentence. She figured West had got the gist of it though, because she heard swearing coming down the phone from her.

"Did they by any chance have multi-coloured armbands on?" West asked. Jess heard her car engine start up.

"I... I don't know..." Why was that even important? Did she know them?

"Okay, never mind. Listen, Jess, where are you? I'm going to come and get you."

"I'm hiding in the broom cupboard opposite Lester's office."

"Good. Stay there. I'm on my way."

"But what about Becker? And all the medics... They don't know what's going on."

"He can take care of himself. You stay right where you are, I will find you."

"Okay..." Jess managed, but West had already hung up. With her heart pounding in her chest and an amusing image of West speeding through London in the middle of the night in her head, Jess curled up on a pile of mop heads and waited.

The door to the medical bay clicked shut and Becker opened his eyes. His body was naturally fighting against the sleep-inducing drugs the medics had set him up with and he didn't want them to increase the dosage; it was already giving him a killer headache. Fighting the temptation to pull the drip feed out of arm he sat up and rubbed his eyes. His hand ached from the drip, the ARC issue pyjamas he was wearing were ever so slightly too small and his arm ached from the stitches they'd given him. It was going to scar, apparently.

A shadow fell across the door and he quickly slid back down, faster than his pounding head agreed with, and waited for that annoying medic to come back in. Or maybe it was Jess. She had been paying him visits every hour or so, and it was coming up to two AM. Ten seconds passed and he realised that no one was going to come in and opened one eye slowly. Then he opened the other and frowned. Figures were filing past the medical bay door, casting shadows across the frosted glass window. A dozen... two dozen... more people than should have even been in the building at this hour. Cautiously, he got out of bed, pulled the drip out of his hand and slipped into his uniform. It was still caked with mud and sweat from the day's events but he decided he could live with that. It was only his own after all.

Suddenly the ADD alarm blared, and the figures moving past the door paused, and then sped up. They began to speak amongst themselves in a language Becker couldn't understand, but one that he definitely recognised. Spanish. He waited for the stream of people to pass and wondered if West had anything to do with this. He hated the thought, but she had only been with them for a few days, and once the idea had planted itself in his brain, it wouldn't leave.

Becker waited until no more shadows were passing the door before inching it open and slipping out. He crept down the corridor, melting into the shadows and painstakingly checking round every corner before moving on. A splintering crash made him freeze in a doorway, heart pounding. Whispered shouts flew down the corridor towards him, and he realised the intruders were only just around the corner. Pressing himself flat against the wall he tried to control his racing pulse, and risked a glance around the wall to try and assess what he was up against. His heart sank. There were at least twenty five people milling around in the doorway to the loading bay, and more were waiting beyond, all armed with guns. Becker snuck back the way he had come, taking extra care not to make any noise as he tried to figure out what to do next. There were too many of them for him to take on himself, that was certain, so his main priority was to reach Jess and get out of the building. From there he could make a few phone calls and these strange invaders would soon regret they had ever set foot in the ARC, but before all of that he needed to get his hands on a weapon. The armoury, then, was his first destination.

He felt better, more sure of himself when he had a plan formulated, no matter how vague it was. He could sort out the finer details later, but for now, what he had would work for him...

_"__¡__Alto!"_ The shout came from behind him, and the overwhelming surprise it brought almost had enough force to knock him over. He froze and slowly turned, only to come face to face with one of the invaders. The man strode purposefully towards him with a grim face and an automatic pistol in one hand, and began to talk at Becker in rapid Spanish, only to escalate to a shout when he realised Becker wasn't understanding a word of it. Becker noticed that he was young, in his early twenties at most, and he wondered with a stab of sympathy if he even knew what he was doing.

"Please..." Becker said quietly, fully aware that the young man couldn't understand. It was enough, however, because the Spaniard stopped talking and a pained look came into his eyes as the gun in his hand lowered slightly. He stood facing Becker, indecision plain across his face, as if deciding whether or not to actually go through with it and pull the trigger. But then he said something else, only a few words, and his aim tightened again. Becker straightened up too. It seemed that the young Spaniard had made his choice. _Well this isn't how I imagined I'd die_, Becker thought. Then he thought of Jess, and wondered if she had made it out of the ARC or if, most probably, she was still sitting in the Hub, completely oblivious to what was going on.

The gunshot wasn't as loud as he had expected.

**Thanks for reading, and please leave a review on your way out!**


	5. Chapter 5

**:O This is rare, I didn't take three years to update this chapter! This probably won't happen again any time soon, so make the most of it.  
>I would like to thank everyone who favedalert added this story or me since chapter four, and I would like to shout out to Heyarandomgal, GODISAWESOME and Prawn Crackers for reviewing. I love you guys!  
>I would also like to just throw in a little Stassia<strong> **Appreciation Notice right here. Cos she's cool.  
>Enjoy the chapter!<br>**

Becker hadn't been aware of closing his eyes, and he opened them to see the young Spaniard slump and fall to the floor, his eyes wide with surprise. Becker stared, mirroring his expression. His heart was attempting to drill a hole through his chest and leap spectacularly onto the floor, and he felt himself go dizzy. It wasn't until he heard boots striding across the polished floor towards him that he thought to look up. Another man was approaching and he too was holding a pistol, but this time, instead of having it pointed at him, Becker found himself being offered the firearm. He took it gratefully and watched its bearer scoop the Spaniard's out of his inert hand.

"You're welcome," he said. Becker was somewhat relieved to find that the newcomer was British.

"Who are you?" Becker asked, annoyed at how shaky his voice sounded. The other man walked past him, forcing Becker to follow at a fast pace.

"A more appropriate question would be who he was," he explained, checking the magazine in the pistol as he walked.

"Go on then, who was he?" Becker decided to go with it.

"I have no idea. But he specifically isn't the issue. It's the organization he works for that you have to look out for."

"Look, will you stop being so cryptic and tell me what's going on in here?" Becker snapped, not in the mood for putting up with the man's games.

"Okay, okay, calm down. I was getting to that." The man paused for a moment to look around a corner before continuing. "The people invading your building belong to a Spanish government extremist group headed by a very dangerous woman named Kesara Ortega. As to why they targeted the ARC, I'm still trying to figure that one out, but what I do know is that if they want something from you, they will get it, no matter how many people they have to go through." The man described the situation so calmly; Becker got the impression that he had done it many times before. The name, however, struck a chord in Becker's memory. Ortega... He was sure he'd heard it before, and it was going to bother him no end until he figured out where and why. The man in front of him was also unnervingly familiar. There was nothing remarkable about him; he was roughly the same height as Becker, had short brown hair and the build of a Spec-Ops soldier, muscular but agile. It was the eyes that did it, though. Cold, calculating dangerous dark brown eyes that looked like they could see right through Becker in seconds, making him unsure of whether he wanted to trust the man or not. He was certain, however, that he had seen them before. He just couldn't for the life of him remember where.

They had come to one of the many cross-junctions of corridors that formed the layout of the ARC building, and the man peered down the adjoining halls before continuing on.

"You never answered my question," Becker said. "Who are you?"

"I don't think that's important right now," The man decided. "Anything else you want to know?"

"Where are we going?"

"_We_ are getting out of here and then _I_ am going back in and dealing with the deltoids while _you_ wait outside. Oh don't give me that look; I thought I made it clear that you don't know what you're dealing with."

"And you think you can take them on? Alone? You don't even know your way around the building."

"It's not up for debate, Action Man. I am going and you are not, that is the end of it."

"Fine," Becker said through gritted teeth, even though it wasn't. "But I'm getting Jess out of here first."

"Who?"

"The field co-ordinator, Jess."

"Dude, I hate to break it to you but if she was in here when they arrived, she's probably dead." The man stopped walking and faced Becker straight on, sympathy tinting his expression. Then it clicked. Everything that had been pestering at him since he'd met the man fell into place, and he remembered where he'd heard the name Ortega before.

_"I was born Teresa Catalina Ortega. That's about at generically Spanish as you can really get." _He remembered, if somewhat hazily, West saying that earlier when they'd been trapped in the cave. Which meant that everything she'd said about her mother centred on this organization, and Kesara Ortega, the leader of it all, was... West's mother. The realisation hit Becker like a slap in the face. With West in his mind, he instantly recognized where he'd seen the man in front of him before too. Teresa West had those eyes, those eyes that had terrified him when they'd first met due to their ability to change so dramatically in milliseconds. But that meant that this man was... No. That was impossible, Teresa had said so herself. Still, Becker decided to test his theory.

The man had moved a little way ahead of him, checking the rest of the corridor ahead of them and didn't seem to realise that Becker was no longer following him.

"Jack West." Becker said, and the man froze. He turned slowly and started back towards Becker, a dangerous look on his face.

"How the Hell do you know my name?" he demanded. Becker suddenly felt very powerful.

"You should be dead."

"Answer the damn question, how do you know who I am?"

"Not until you tell me why you lied to your sister." Becker looked Jack straight in the eye and raised an eyebrow. Jack backed down, refusing to meet his eye.

"I had to. I needed to get things done and she needed to be as far away from me as possible. So I pulled a few strings and got some official people to tell her I had died." he rounded on Becker again. "It's none of your business, anyway."

"No, but it is hers."

"You are not going to tell her."

"I don't think you're in much of a position to be telling me what I can and can't do."

"No, but I could just shoot you." when no response presented itself, Jack continued. "Now you tell me how you know Teresa."

"She works here. Got drafted in a few days ago."

"Oh holy..." Jack launched into a string of expletives that Becker was convinced he was mostly making up, but a good portion of which were extremely rude.

"How is that a problem?" Becker interrupted.

"They're looking for her!" Jack exclaimed. "Oh dear lord, it all makes perfect sense now. Attack the building while no one's here, and then lie in wait for her to turn up in the morning. Clever, I have to give them that one. Is she here now?"

"She shouldn't be. But why are they looking for her?"

"Because Ortega wants her. It's complicated..."

"She's your mother, I know that." Becker stated. Jack stopped and blinked a few times, as if re-evaluating his initial impression of Becker.

"What else do you know?"

"That's it, actually. Teresa didn't go into much detail."

"Great." Jack muttered. Becker couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "Okay, change of plan. Does this building have a central control room kind of place?"

"Of course."

"Well lead on. We need to get this lot out now before something really bad happens."

"Even I had figured that out," Becker muttered, leading the way towards the elevator. No more conversation passed between them until the elevator doors came in sight.

"Is there any other way in? I just think using the lift is a little conspicuous if they're already up there."

"Not unless you want to crawl through ventilation shafts for an hour."

"Conspicuous it is then," Jack shrugged. He pulled his pistol out of the back pocket of his jeans and stood so that he could see who was in the compartment, but they wouldn't see him. Becker mirrored his stance on the other side of the doors, his own pistol raised. The doors opened with a quiet ping, revealing nothing but the back of the elevator carriage, and Jack led the way in. Becker followed, trying to force himself to stop being so tense; it only made him feel paranoid.

"Well this is either really good or really bad," Jack announced in a far too cheery voice. Becker raised an eyebrow, which Jack mistook for an indication that he should continue. "The fact that we've got this far means that they're either sweeping the lower levels before taking the control room, or they're already in there and we're walking straight into an ambush which we will not survive. So it's either really good or really bad."

"Hope for the best, prepare for the worst," Becker quoted.

"Something like that, yeah." The carriage stopped, and Jack had his pistol back out and raised in milliseconds. The doors opened, and both men advanced. Becker headed straight for the ADD, even though it was clear there was no one manning it. It had gone into sleep mode; no one had been in here for at least half an hour.

"There's no one in here," Jack called from the other side of the room. Becker waved a hand in acknowledgement and began to search the room. "If she's not in here, we're not going looking for her," Jack shouted again.

"I'm not going to ask you to come with me, if that's what you mean." Jack's attitude was starting to get on Becker's nerves.

"It wasn't, but what the Hell," Jack sat in Jess' chair and woke up the ADD.

"Do you know how to use that?" Becker asked.

"It's a computer. It's not going to take me long to work it out."

"Good luck getting in," Becker muttered. He didn't think Jack heard him. Becker walked around the Hub, calling Jess' name over and over again, concern multiplying within him every time his call went unanswered.

"I don't think she's in here mate," Jack called casually. Becker, tempted though he was to tell him to shut up, kept quiet. He could be right. She could have gone for a coffee or something and been found. Becker just didn't want to admit it. He leant against the glass wall of Lester's office and supressed a sigh.

A muffled thump reached his ears from opposite him, and his eyes found the door of the utility cupboard. It sounded like something had fallen against the door on the other side.

"Jess?" he called, going to investigate. The door thumped again, and Becker pulled down on the handle. It didn't budge, so he leaned his whole body weight into it and nearly fell over when it did swing open, revealing a wide-eyed Jess crouched in the corner, wielding a mop in both hands. Upon seeing Becker, the mop was discarded as she launched herself off the floor and into his arms.

"Oh my God, you have no idea how long I've been in there," she babbled, hugging him tight.

"Whoa, hey, it can't have been that long," Becker said, a laugh in his voice as he tried to pull her arms off. She remained defiantly attached to him for a number of seconds, during which his resistance vanished as he realised he liked the feeling of Jess hugging him, until she pulled away and smoothed down her skirt, refusing to meet his eye.

"Sorry," she said, trying to regain some composure. "I just didn't know what was going on, and..."

"What do you know?" Jack demanded, appearing behind Becker like a ghost.

"I... Um... Who's he?" Jess asked Becker, causing Jack to roll his eyes impatiently.

"Jack West, Teresa's brother," Becker explained.

"I don't know if you'd realised, but I don't actually want everyone to know that," Jack snapped.

"He's a bit grumpy and has a serious attitude problem but I think we can trust him," Becker told Jess, ignoring Jack completely.

"Oh, yeah, thanks," Jack snorted, sarcasm dripping from his tone. "Now that we have all the minor details out of the way, can you answer my question?"

"I don't really know anything, I just saw a group of men doing something to the door to the loading bay, and then Teresa told me to get back here and hide. I've been shut up in that cupboard ever since."

"Wait... You called Teresa? Please tell me she's not on her way here," Jack looked at Jess with what was probably the first display of sincerity Becker had ever seen him show.

"There was an anomaly alert, only there was no anomaly, and she was calling me to tell me that when I heard a noise, and I went to find out what was going on, and she told me to keep the line open. Look, who are these people, and what do they want with the ARC?"

"You don't want to know and nothing, nothing at all." Jack turned away from Jess and Becker and turned back to the ADD. "Would you mind answering this please?" He held up Jess' phone, which was vibrating for Britain and telling them all that Matt was calling. "Tell him to go home; he doesn't need to get caught up in this too." Jess took the phone and pressed green, Jack's instructions fresh in her head.

"Hey Matt... Yes, I know, West beat you to it... No, nothing... Yes..." Becker turned to face Jack while she talked.

"How are you planning on getting us out of here?" he whispered.

"I wasn't actually planning anything further than this point, so I was going to leave that bit up to you."

"Oh, so you choose now to stop telling me what to do."

"Oh get over it and think. You know the layout of this place, Mr Head of Security. I'm just the guy that saves the day and disappears, always have been."

"Is that what happened? You saved the day and disappeared, leaving Teresa behind?" Becker's words caused Jack to stop and turn and face him.

"Why do you keep bringing that up? You don't want to know, okay. You shouldn't even be here, caught up in this."

"Well I am, so..."

"Listen, okay, and listen good 'cause I'm only gonna say this once." Jack's voice was low and dangerous, and Becker decided it was a good idea to pay attention. "This is bigger than you think it is, and if you dig too deep into this kind of thing, you won't be able to climb out again. That's what happened, if you must know. I can't let Teresa know that I'm still alive because I'm in too deep for her to get involved now. The less she knows the better, and the same thing applies to you. So just let me deal with this, and then I will disappear. Like I always do." He turned away and resumed his work at the ADD.

"You need my help," Becker stated. "No one knows this place better than me, and layout maps will only do so much for you. Let me help you." Jack shook his head sadly.

"You don't want to get involved. You really don't. Now I'll help you get out, but then you leave this to me. And for God's sake don't say a word to Teresa."

"If she asks I'm not going to lie."

"Then make sure she doesn't ask." Jack's eyes bored into Becker's and he realised that he wasn't just being the Alpha Male anymore; he was trying to save his life. So Becker nodded and accepted the fact that this time there was nothing he could do.

"I've convinced Matt to stay home, and he said he'd call Abby and Connor and tell them the same," Jess chirped from behind them, bringing them both back to Earth. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan," Jack announced, completely unphased, "Is that we get you two out of here." He picked his pistol off the desk. "Any questions?"

"What about the men downstairs?"

"We will probably have to take a few detours through the vents, so do keep up, and you may want to lose the shoes."

"I meant what about the fact that the whole ARC is swarming with them."

"I know what you meant. That part of the plan just doesn't concern either of you."

"But aren't you..." Jess looked up at Becker, expecting him to start the argument again.

"No," he said, much to Jess' obvious disappointment. "Let's leave that to the experts this time." He turned to Jack. "You ready?"

"Always am." With Jack in front, the three of them began back across the Hub towards the elevator.

They'd only got three steps when the doors opened in front of them.

"Get down!" Jack screamed, throwing himself under a desk. Becker grabbed Jess and spun her across his body before shoving her hard onto the floor, where she landed in an extremely unladylike position behind the ADD. Becker knelt down next to her and watched as all Hell broke loose in the Hub. Twelve black-clad men came through the elevator doors, all of whom were brandishing guns. Jack didn't let them get ten metres into the room. He opened fire instantly, and six of them dropped to the floor before the others even realised what was going on. Becker leaned out from behind the computers and fired, felling three more. The remaining three turned and ran back to the elevator, two of whom didn't survive the time it took the doors to close. In the silence that followed, Jack swore loudly.

"That was too close. He's going to bring more; we have to get out of here." He began rummaging through the Spaniards' pockets, looking for more pistol magazines and any other type of ammunition he could find. He threw a handful to Becker.

"What do we do now?" Jess squeaked. Becker turned back to her, at a loss for an answer. She was pale and shaking a little, her blue eyes that were usually so bright and cheery were now wide and reflected sheer terror.

"You said the vents led out of here," Jack said to Becker.

"I did, but..."

"It's coming back up!" Jess cried. Without a word, Becker slid back down behind the ADD and positioned himself where he could see the elevator but whoever came through it hopefully couldn't see him. Beside him, Jess tried to suppress a sob.

"Hey," he said, turning to face her, "It's going to be okay. I'm going to get you out of here." Jess stared at him, reading his face for any sign of doubt, any indication at all that he didn't think he could keep his word. She didn't find any; if it was the last thing he did, he was going to get Jess Parker out of the ARC alive. He leaned towards her and pressed his lips against her forehead, trying to convey the sense protection he felt towards her in that simple gesture.

"Becker..." Jack's shout forced him to return to the task at hand, and he fixed his sights on the elevator once again.

"I've convinced Matt to stay home, and he said he'd call Abby and Connor and tell them the same," Jess announced, bringing the phone down from her ear and walking towards Becker and Jack. She seemed to have interrupted a pretty tense conversation, but she was eager to get going. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan," Jack announced, "Is that we get you two out of here." He picked his pistol off the desk. "Any questions?"

"What about the men downstairs?"

"We will probably have to take a few detours through the vents, so do keep up, and you may want to lose the shoes." Jess was starting to dislike Jack almost as much as she did his sister.

"I meant what about the fact that the whole ARC is swarming with them."

"I know what you meant. That part of the plan just doesn't concern either of you."

"But aren't you..." Jess looked up at Becker. A moment ago he had been stubbornly telling Jack that he would stay and defend the ARC with him. There was no way he was just going to let this go.

"No," Becker said. "Let's leave that to the experts this time." Jess wanted to argue, to tell him that he shouldn't leave the fate of the ARC to some stranger, and that there was no way Jack was going to be able to fight them all off himself, but Becker turned to Jack before she could formulate a sentence. "You ready?"

"Always am." Jack seemed to have no idea the gravity of the situation. The three of them began across the Hub, Jack in front and Jess staying at Becker's side. She didn't trust this Jack character at all, and she was honestly too scared to let go of Becker's arm.

She didn't see the doors of the elevator opening until Jack started yelling, and then she was suddenly face down on the floor behind the ADD as gunshots started firing all around her. No more than a dozen shots went off, and then it was over half as suddenly as it had started. She sat, shaking in fear, until Jack began swearing explosively, something she was beginning to think was a habit of his. "That was too close. He's going to bring more; we have to get out of here." He climbed over a few bodies and seemed to have no qualms whatsoever about digging through their pockets.

"What do we do now?" Jess squeaked. Becker turned to look at her, his mouth half open in response, but then he shut it again. He didn't have an answer. Jack began talking again, and Jess looked past the two men to the little blue dial on the elevator.

"It's coming back up!" she cried, since the other two hadn't seemed to notice. Becker slid back down next to her, and she felt herself begin to shake. She didn't want to start crying. She really, really did not want to start crying now. But it didn't seem avoidable, and without her consent a sob escaped her lips. Becker turned to face her.

"Hey. It's going to be okay," he whispered. His face was only centimetres away from hers and she had an overwhelming urge to bury her head in his chest and cry. "I'm going to get you out of here." Jess stared into his eyes, looking for a sign of that tell-tale look that he always got when he knew he couldn't keep a promise he made. She had seen it before, just a couple of times, but this time there was no trace of it anywhere. And because of that, she suddenly felt stronger. Becker leaned towards her and, before she could make sense of what was going on, he kissed her forehead. Something clicked inside her then, and she wanted to put her arms around him and pull him closer and kiss him back, properly, on the lips, and tell him that she loved him. That was the important bit, the telling. But before she could, at a command from Jack that she didn't properly hear, Becker slid away from her and aimed his pistol on the elevator again. Jess, blinking back tears, made herself as small as possible and waited for Hell to break loose for the second time in five minutes.

And all Hell did break loose, just not in the way Jess had expected. This time, before anyone could start shooting anyone else, one of the panels in the vent system above their heads fell to the ground with a clang, and Teresa West dropped from the ceiling. The men emerging from the elevator began talking fast and loud to one another, and then Jack opened fire. Teresa dived behind Jess and Becker just as a bullet smacked into the ground where she'd previously been crouched, and she too started taking pot shots at their opponents. A bullet hit the ADD, sending glass and sparks everywhere, and Jess screamed.

"Teresa!" Becker yelled over the noise. He went unanswered, and Jess looked up at the Sargent. She wasn't firing anymore. She was still crouched behind the ADD, but she was staring straight at Jack, a look of confusion and amazement on her face. For some reason, she hadn't expected to see him here, and she didn't quite know how to process the fact that he was.

"Sargent West!" Becker shouted again, and Teresa blinked, coming down to Earth with the proverbial bump. "Get Jess out of here, now," he ordered, his voice leaving no room for argument. Teresa nodded once and got to her feet, still using the ADD as a shield. She pulled Jess up off the floor and fired two shots through the computer system.

"As soon as there's a pause, run for the shaft," Teresa whispered in Jess' ear. Jess nodded, far too terrified to point out that the shaft Teresa had dropped in from was completely exposed. "I'll go up first and pull you up after me, got it?" Teresa didn't wait for Jess' reply. "Okay, go!" In the sudden and slightly disconcerting silence, the two of them ran for the middle of the room.

**Hehehe. Is it wierd to love your own characters? Cos I really love Jack :P  
>So yes, did you enjoy? Did you hate? Please leave a review and tell me!<strong>


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry for my complete uselessness and lack of activity, but life caught up with me for a surprising amount of time, so writing, much to my annoyance, took bottom priority. **

** I would like to once again thank everyone who reviewed and faved, but I am afraid I can't mention you all this time because I lost the piece of paper I wrote all the names down on. I am useless, really I am.**

** So just to convince everyone I'm not dead, here's Chapter Six.**

West waited for the moment of strategic benefit; namely when the gunshots stopped; and kicked the thin metal plate away from the narrow shaft she was sitting on and dropped to the floor, landing in a roll to stop herself from breaking an ankle. Unfortunately, she'd misjudged the distance, and she ended up falling a little further than she'd anticipated, before beginning the roll feeling slightly surprised. The result wasn't anything serious; just a slight ache in one shoulder and the decision that gravity was not on her side that day. Her eyes immediately found Jess and Becker and she sprung off the floor towards them none too soon. She felt the breeze created by the speeding bullet centimetres away from her face. She settled into a crouch next to Jess and began firing at the men already emerging from the elevators, promising herself a good complain at the laws of physics later on in the day. Bullets hit the ADD, making her jump and fix her full attention on the fighting. She wasn't sure which had come as more of a shock, the glass explosion or the scream Jess gave out. Someone further inside the Hub slid across the floor to take position behind a different table, and in doing so gave West a good enough view of his face. What she saw made every sense and function in her body cease to respond to brain signals, time seemed to temporarily stop, and it was a wonder she even continued breathing. The man she was looking at couldn't be, shouldn't be, but clearly was, her brother Jack. It did not make sense in her head. Jack was dead. There was no questioning that, she'd spent months knowing and being unable to do anything about it. Yet here he was, in the ARC, as usual somewhere he wasn't supposed to be and right in the middle of trouble. He was in front of her, clear as day, which lead her to one inescapable conclusion: he had lied to her.

"Sargent West!" The loud, commanding bark from Captain Becker brought her crashing down with a thud and she cursed internally. This was a life-and-death situation! She couldn't start reminiscing; it was going to get someone killed. "Get Jess out of here, now!" He barely spared her a glance but kept his eyes on the fight in front of him. West nodded once anyway and got to her feet. She fired two shots through the computer system and found Jess.

"As soon as there's a pause, run for the shaft," she whispered, "I'll go up first and pull you up after me, got it?" and without waiting for a reply, she counted down in her head. In the sudden and disconcerting silence that followed, West made her move. "Go!" She darted out from behind the computer system and a bullet whizzed past her head in seconds. The owner dropped to the ground almost instantly, a victim of Becker's deadly accuracy. She pulled a stool up to the hole she had made in the ceiling not ten minutes previously, and in one swift movement was lying on the floor of the ventilation shaft. She turned to reach down to Jess, who was having much more difficulty climbing onto the seat thanks to her heels.

"Loose the shoes Jess!" West shouted down. Jess complied, managed to stand straight on the stool, and reached up to West's waiting hands. West pulled her up, hand over hand until she had a good enough reach and could wrap her arms around Jess' shoulders and scramble backwards, pulling Jess with her. While the field co-ordinator lay out of breath on the floor of the foot-high shaft, West checked her ammunition.

"We're not just going to leave them there, are we?" Jess' question made West look up, into eyes that were nearly spilling tears and willing her to do something, anything, that would help the man down below them. West was convinced she only meant one of them, but she didn't say anything on the subject.

"What would you like me to do, give you a pistol and drop back down there? No. Becker ordered me to get you out, so I will. If they're still deep in it by then, I'll think about going back in, but we need backup."

"There's got to be something we can do," Jess muttered. West just snorted.

"Come on before someone shoots the roof by accident." she shuffled along on her front until they came to a junction. There was a somewhat awkward silence.

"You don't know where you're going, do you?" Jess asked sweetly. West didn't respond, merely shifted out of the way so that Jess could take the lead. She crawled past with a slight chuckle, a gesture West didn't deign worthy of acknowledgement. They crawled for half an hour in complete silence except for the sound of their hands and knees hitting the metal beneath them, a time that was lost to West. She tried to deny the facts in front of her, tried to convince herself that it had all been a mistake, she'd been sent the wrong letter... She would have settled for anything rather than admit the possibility that her brother had been lying to her. She and Jack had a stronger connection than that. They would do anything to protect each other, and would, by Jack's own words, always support one another. West didn't understand why he would do something like that; make her think he was dead. What possibly could he need to do that for? She refused to believe it.

And yet... There was one undeniable fact that kept presenting itself to the front of her mind. If Jack had wanted her to know he was alive, he would have told her. He would have sent an email, or at the very least replied to the desperate text messages she had sent him in some vain attempt to prove his COs wrong. At last it sunk in. He had lied to her. He had let her believe he was dead, and there was no way in Hell she was going to let him slip away again without finding out why.

Jess continued to lead her on through the maze of metal duct tunnels, and with alarm West realised she had been daydreaming instead of mapping the route they'd taken in her head. It didn't matter, however; they reached the loading bay unchallenged. Once there, however, they faced a problem.

"There's at least ten of them," Jess reported, peering into a grate, "All armed, and there's a white van that I can't see into. There may be more in there."

West said nothing, merely pulled her pistol once again out of its holster on her hip and carefully clicked open the ventilation hatch.

"Wait, what are you... You're not going down there!"

"Shh! Stay here, don't make any noise, and don't, whatever you do, try and help."

"They'll shoot you on the spot, West, and you know it."

"No they won't. They don't want me dead." Before Jess could utter another protest, West dropped in a similar fashion as before onto the concrete of the loading bay.

She was greeted by silence. It was amusing, actually, the shocked expressions on their faces as she stood there in front of them, just one against a dozen. They all knew who she was; they just hadn't expected her sudden arrival. Slowly, they raised their rifles; big, brutal things with the probable capability to fill her with bullets in no more than a few seconds, were the holders so inclined. In under ten seconds, West was surrounded by soldiers. The illusion was slightly damaged by the varying looks of conviction on their faces.

"Hold your fire!" one ordered, stepping forward out of the circle. He wasn't armed, but instead of a gun carried an air of instant and unquestionable authority. He was also at least three inches taller than the rest of them. West thought she might have seen him before.

"Teresa Ortega, I am under instructions to bring you before the Leader Ortega for questioning and recruitment. Failure to..."

"Let me stop you right there," West announced, raising a hand. "First of all, that's not my name. Secondly, you and I both know that I am not going to come with you willingly, so let's just get that one out of the way. And thirdly, why are you even here?"

"We are under instruction to bring you in for questioning..."

"...And recruitment, yeah, I got that. What I meant was why not just launch a stealth mission to my flat or something? This whole thing is just a little out of character."

"Mission tactics may not be disclosed. You will come with me."

"Will I now? And how are you going to enforce that? You can't shoot me."

The commander's expression had gone from superior to put-out during the course of the conversation, and by this point he looked like he was about to have a heart attack. One single blood vessel on his forehead was pulsing in a very unattractive manner, and the only reason West didn't burst out laughing was her attempt to retain some kind of professionalism.

"I may not be able to shoot you," he said quietly, "But there are no limitations on how much I can hurt you."

Unfortunately for him, the backswing on his punch was far too wide, and West saw it coming long before he had even committed to it. Instead of sending her sprawling across the floor as he had no doubt intended, the Commander found himself with his arm twisted around his back, being used as a shield by West, whose hold on him was far too strong for him to break. She also had a pistol held securely to his forehead.

"Jess!" she barked towards the ceiling. The field coordinator landed somewhat awkwardly on the concrete a moment later, and almost froze in shock at the sight before her.

"No one follows us out," West ordered, "Or he dies." The soldiers reluctantly made a hole in their circle and watched as Jess, West and their commander made a slow advance to the exit. Just as they reached the rear door of the loading bay, a bullet ricocheted off the wall two feet above them, sending a small drizzle of concrete down after it and causing Jess to scream. West let out a hollow laugh and released the commander, sending one foot into the small of his back that sent him staggering to the ground. West pulled Jess out the door and closed it with an unnecessary slam, before locking it with her wrist key.

"What the hell was that?"

"I'll explain everything in a minute. Just get behind the car," West led Jess over to a small blue hatchback and opened the passenger door, reached into the glove box and returned to the Loading Bay. She disengaged the lock in the same movement as pulling the pin on the stun grenade in her hand, and in seconds she was back with Jess behind her car. Instinctively, Jess' hands went over her ears, but it was an unnecessary precaution. A muffled 'boom' followed, and West straightened up.

"That ought to do it," she muttered to herself. "Jess, I need you to call backup while I sort some things out... Jess?"

The petite woman stood up slowly, visibly shaking and trying to control herself. West felt a little sorry for her. It was unlikely she had ever done something like that before.

"You promised me answers. I am not doing anything until you give me them."

West let out a deep breath and leaned against her car, pulling a stick of mint chewing gum out of one of the many pockets her cargo trousers contained. She chewed thoughtfully for a moment before looking Jess straight in the eye.

"I'll tell you," she said, "But you have to swear you will tell no one what I am about to say, not even Lester." Jess gave a small, determined nod. "You might want to sit down then," West decided, "This is going to take a while."

A sickening dread accompanied the hollow click that indicated to Becker his pistol was empty. Thankfully Jack managed to hit the Spanish soldier he had been aiming at, and that stopped the latest handful of them for the time being. Just for fun, he hunted in every one of his pockets for another magazine, but he already knew he wasn't going to find one. Their luck, if that was what he was calling it, had finally run out.

"Jack, what've you got left? I'm out."

"Half a mag. We're going to have to get out of here pretty soon in that case." Becker immediately knew there was something wrong; there was pain in Jack's voice that he was trying to supress. He darted out of his cover position, catching a glimpse of the pile of corpses slowly building up in front of the elevators. There were dozens of them. Becker didn't keep his gaze on them for long.

"What happened?" he asked, reaching Jack.

"Shot in the arm. It's not a major issue, it went straight through. Just hurts like Hell. How can we get out of here?"

"There are the vents," Becker only needed one look at Jack's arm to decide that wasn't an option. "Or the lift."

"Where does that corridor go?" Jack shifted his weight on the floor, simultaneously jogging his arm and sucking air in through his teeth.

"The rest of this floor is all research labs and the menagerie, nothing useful. The only way down or up is that elevator."

"What drunken idiot designed this place?"

"One who didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition," Becker answered sarcastically.

"Dude that wasn't the Inquisition, that was the bloody Armada," If Jack had noticed Becker's deliberate joke he didn't respond to it. Instead he looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "That was Teresa, wasn't it?"

"Yes it was," Becker responded distantly. He was trying to figure out a way down to the armoury without getting shot, but his options were thinning out rapidly.

"She saw me, didn't she?"

"I think so, yeah."

"Well that's just...Fantastic," he eventually decided on the word to use, although Becker was disinclined to agree with him. "What do you propose we do?"

"My immediate suggestion would be to head down to the armoury and fight our way out from there, but that would involve using the lift, and I am not fond of what's waiting for us on the other end."

"Although we don't actually know which floor they were on," Jack pointed out.

"No, but if it was me, I'd have every floor covered by now."

"True. Vents?"

"You wouldn't last ten minutes with that arm."

"Will you stop being right all the time? So what do we do with next to no ammo and very little anything else?"

"Well we can raid them for ammunition, for a start," Becker suggested, as much as he disliked the idea.

"Now why didn't I think of that?" Jack stood up, scanned the pile of bodies in front of them, and made a noise.

"I agree. Can we hurry up and do this?"

They both quickly and methodically found pistols, ammunition, and anything else that they thought might come in useful. They worked in silence, and tried as hard as possible not to think about what they were doing. Jack came across a man, lying in a corner, still alive, with a fatal gunshot wound that simply hadn't killed him yet. He raised his pistol.

_"Lo Siento,"_ he muttered, and shot the man through the head. "Let's get out of here." Becker nodded, even though Jack wasn't even looking at him, and punched the call button on the lift doors.

"What did that mean?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," Jack translated. "Didn't they teach you foreign languages at school?"

"The only class I failed."

"That is officially impressive."

"Do you ever shut up?" Becker inquired, somewhat sarcastically.

"I tried once," Jack said sadly. "Never really got over it."

"Unbelievable," Becker muttered.

The doors opened with their usual soft ping that suddenly seemed extremely loud, and Becker was almost shocked to find a completely empty carriage before them. He had, deep in his subconscious, been expecting the Spanish to have left them a surprise gift before leaving, but thankfully they hadn't. Jack had been thinking the same thing.

"Okay. Where are they?"

"Maybe they realised they're no match for us and left," Becker said, not even convincing himself.

"Yeah... No. They've had a change of tactics."

"Either that or we've killed them all."

"Isn't that a lovely thought," Jack said cheerily. Becker tried to work out if he was being serious or not, and deciding he would rather he wasn't.

"Are we going in or aren't we?" he asked, realising they were both still standing outside the lift.

"Well, here goes nothing," Jack said, just as cheerily as before, and took one giant and exaggerated step into the elevator.

**So thanks for reading, and please leave a review as many of you lovely people so often do **


	7. Chapter 7

**Okay, okay, I owe everyone an apology. Sorry for being so terribly slow at updating; I honestly have no excuse, I'm just lazy. But anyway, I still want to thank everyone who gave me a review, and this time I saved the emails so I know who everyone is: **Mijo54, **(to whom I extend further apologies at the length of my update time) and the two anons who sent me reviews. Unless you're the same person, in which case… I don't know where I was going with that. Anyway, do enjoy this chapter. **

**Chapter Seven**

_Two hundred years ago, give or take, a group of men decided they didn't like the way Spain was being governed. That in itself is nothing out of the ordinary; there's always someone complaining about the system in some form or another; but these men, ten of them, decided to take their own action against it. They set up what they called "El Voz de la Gente," which literally translates into "The Voice of the People," or "The People's Voice." Their aim was to set up a council that would listen to problems the people had, devise a solution to these problems, and then make sure they reached the desks of politicians and bureaucrats who could do something to ensure these problems ceased to arise. It was a very effective scheme, and initially only active in and around Madrid, but when people began to come to the Office from further and further away, the Original Ten (as the founders are now known) split up and created Offices in nine other major cities in Spain, ranging from Bilbao and Corunna in the North to Seville and Malaga in the South. They still sent their requests and ideas via the Head Office in Madrid, but the operation by this stage worked on a country-wide scale._

_It functioned like this for fifty years; it was a flawless system, really. But the Original ten were coming to realise that they were getting old, and they could not continue running the Offices for much longer, so decided to hand them on to their sons. This was not a problem for all but one of the Ten, named Miguel Ortega. He had two sons, and since the other Nine had one and one alone, he was forced to decide between them. By tradition, he gave it to the older of the two, but since they were merely months apart the younger did not think this was fair. When it came for Miguel to officially hand over the Office, the younger brother pretended not to mind, and congratulated his brother on his achievement. But that night, as a storm raged outside the windows of the Office, the younger Ortega killed his brother, making it appear as a suicide, and the following morning announced himself as the new Head of the Bilbao Office. Miguel Ortega was distraught by the news, and pleaded with the rest of the Office Heads to investigate his son's death further. However, since none of the Original remained in power, his pleas went unanswered, and Julio Ortega, the younger brother, was free to command the Office. _

_ He had no plans to remain in control of just the one Office. Julio Ortega wanted power, and to attain it he needed to control each and every one of the Ten Offices, and declare himself Head of the whole organisation. He set out to murder the other Heads, fabricating it to look like suicide as he had done his brother, and in no more than three years his goal was achieved. Seven of the ten Offices belonged to him, and the remaining three Heads agreed to resign than be killed as well. _

_ Of course, Ortega knew that he could not rule all of the Offices alone, so instead he trained Deputies, all of whom shared his lust for power and were completely loyal to him, and assigned each one an Office while he retreated into the Ortega family mansion in the countryside somewhere around Bilbao and received and sent information from there. After this, no one saw his face besides his Deputies, and even they saw him only rarely._

_ Under Julio Ortega's control, El Voz expanded. It went from its beginning of ten men in an Office in Madrid to having the largest private army in the whole of Spain, a so-called Peacekeeping Force that now consists of millions of soldiers. Ortega was resourceful; anything the people brought to him he could achieve, if not through political persuasion then certainly through violence and threats. The People learned to fear El Voz. The black uniforms and primary-colour insignias lost their original meaning of hope and peace, and became a symbol of spying, torment and cruelty. By the time of Julio Ortega's death, the reputation of his institution; for it really was his own by this time; had forced all who did not wish to involve themselves to forget. El Voz had been transformed into its own government sector, used by those in power to sway the opinions of their political enemies and providing Spain with a stronger foothold on the world stage._

_ For too long many made the mistake of believing that the Ortegas were loyal to Spain. They were not. Julio Ortega's only child hungered even more for power than he had, and by the end of his rule El Voz became a group of mercenaries, working for the highest bidder. It was often the case that the client they had served one day would be the intended target the next; they were a significant reason as to why the civil war of the 1930s turned out the way it did._

_ The organisation soon slipped from the minds of all but the most powerful, power-hungry and illegal, and now operates on a global scale, not just in Spain, praying on the oblivion of other governments. It is said that the only accurate record remains in the possession of the Royal Family and is passed on in secrecy from generation to new generation, but no one has ever invested any truth in that. The Ortegas didn't even keep a record of their dealings and plots in the early days, so anything dated from Julio's time is most likely a forged document. _

_ About fifty years ago, Kesara Esme Ortega was born, and trained from that birth to believe in the ways of El Voz. She learnt what was necessary to continue its wellbeing, and has an unnatural talent at devising the most cunning and subtle plots and schemes. When her father died and left her at the age of twenty five in command of the whole organisation without an heir, her instincts told her to act. She charmed a young Englishman, Samuel Taylor West, while he was taking a vacation in the charming seaside town of San Sebastian, and used her extraordinary talent at lying and pretence to gain from him two children; first a boy, and then a girl. After the girl's birth, Kesara needed keep up the charade no longer, and so left West, denying him further sanction in Spain and forcing him to return to England and forget everything about El Voz and other details Kesara exposed him to. This was the beginning of the long list of mistakes she made. West demanded that he take their son with him, dashing Kesara's hopes of El Voz eventually having two strong leaders. Her plan had been that the daughter would command in her place, and the son would grow up strong of both body and mind to lead the organisation's vast and expanding army. However, neither Samuel West nor the child were ever seen in Spain by El Voz again._

_ Undeterred, Kesara attempted to raise her daughter to the same standard as she had been; to understand the ways of the organisation and eventually replace her as its leader. Unfortunately, and to this day Kesara does not understand where she went wrong, her daughter resisted._

"And here we are," West ended her story, popping a bubble in her chewing gum with a loud snap. For a moment Jess didn't move. She had taken West's advice halfway through and taken a seat inside the car while the Spaniard remained in the exact same position throughout; leaning against the back door with arms folded. She seemed to lean on things with her arms folded a lot.

"So you're supposed to be the leader of El Voz?" she eventually asked, her voice barely louder than a whisper.

"Not yet. Unfortunately my mother still has a few more natural years ahead of her. Or at least, she will if my brother doesn't have a say in it."

"That's barbaric," Jess muttered. West stared at her.

"No, Jess, it isn't. If you had any idea how…"

"You don't need to give me the lecture, West, I understand. It's just not right that the two of you are trying so hard to kill your own mother. It's not… I don't know… natural."

"I don't think that what's natural had much of a say in anything this organization has been involved in," West muttered. "Now, about that backup?"

"Oh, yeah. Right." Jess, thankful to be doing something useful for the first time all night, took out her phone. Three missed calls from Matt. Why was Matt calling her at five in the morning? Oh well, she'd find out later, once all this was, hopefully, over. On the third ring, three black 4x4s rolled through the security gates behind West's car, and Jess hung up, confused. One man jumped out of the front vehicle before it had even stopped and strode up to Jess.

"We received an emergency backup call from Captain Becker," he announced. Becker. Of course. "He only sent a text message; can you tell us what's going on?"

"Multiple hostiles have taken over the building," West informed him before Jess could even get a word in. "Unknown quantity, but there are a lot of them. We also have two friendlies inside, Captain Becker and a white adult male of similar height and build."

"How do we proceed?"

"Shoot to kill," West decided, a steel glint in her eye. "No one gets out of here tonight."

"Let's face it, we have no plan," Jack pleaded with Becker for the ninth time since getting out of the lift on the ground floor and being faced with no one at all. "We are going round in circles, and our enemies are hiding from us. That spells trouble."

"Will you please shut up? I know exactly where I'm going."

"Really?" Jack glared at the back of Becker's head. "Care to fill me in?"

"I told you, we're going to the loading bay, and from there, outside. With any luck Jess and Teresa will be out there waiting for us."

"And your backup, too, presumably, although you told me when you texted them in the lift that they would be here in seconds, not years."

"You know, for someone who specialises in stealth, you make an awful lot of noise."

"For someone who specialises in tactics you are unbelievably clueless," he retorted. Becker stopped suddenly and held up a hand, and Jack was worried for a split second that he was going to hit him. He didn't though. Instead he brought his index finger over his lips in a movement that meant 'shut up, we're going in,' so Jack shut up. It got very boring very quickly, but for once Becker seemed to know what he was doing. With a bleep, he swung his wrist in front of the door before them and pushed it open, bringing his pistol to the ready in his hand as he did so. The gesture, however heroic, wasn't necessary; the loading bay was empty. Jack whistled, listening to it echo around the vast room.

"Okay, now they're creeping me out. There is no one here. At all. Anywhere. And I think we've looked everywhere…"

"Shut up." Becker snapped. The tone in his voice was a pretty good indication to Jack to do as he said, and at once he realised why. The bay was not empty; rather, he just couldn't see anyone. But he could hear them. Footsteps, heavy ones in heavy boots no less, were trying to be as quiet as possible as they ran across the concrete. Jack mentally kicked himself; he had just done the less dramatic equivalent of shooting a flare into the sky to signal their location. Unfortunately, there was nothing in the loading bay besides a few stone pillars keeping the ceiling up, so they couldn't hide. Neither were they going to go back; that would just lead them right back to square one. So it seemed; indicated to Jack by Becker's rapidly advancing frame; that the only way was forwards. Well, he had been trying to steer the man down the less deadly path over the course of the day.

By this time, Becker had reached the opposite wall, which Jack could now see led round a corner, and signalled with a disparaging glare for him to stop daydreaming and get over there too. Jack did so, and pulled out his own pistol once again. It seemed he had been holding the thing far too much lately. The footsteps were getting progressively louder, which was something of a stupid observation, and eventually Becker cocked his pistol and swung round it in the same mock-hero movement he had used on the door. He was greeted not with an abundance of gunshots as they had both expected, but with an explosion of swearing that only he could have accomplished. He and one other, at any rate.

"Captain!" the unmistakeable voice of his sister echoed through the loading bay. "I was this far away from shooting you! How did you get out?"

"They've disappeared," he told her, disarming his pistol. "We haven't seen them anywhere."

"We?" Great. Nice choice of words, Becker, Jack thought to himself grimly.

"Yeah, I picked up this idiot on the way." Becker took a step back, and Jack took his cue. Moving out of the way of the concealing corner, Jack looked down at his shoes, delaying their eyes meeting for another second. When he finally brought himself to look at her properly, he detected a vast multitude of emotions flash through her eyes before she sealed them completely. Wonder, confirmation, pain, hatred. They were just a few. Without a word from either of them, Teresa straightened up, turned away from him, and addressed Captain Becker.

"So what's the plan?"

"We'll need to sweep the building floor by floor, find out what they're doing and if they took anything. And then one of you will have to explain what the hell just happened."

"Very well. Where are they now?"

"I don't know. We heard them in the vents above the Hub but haven't seen hide or hair of them since…"

They carried on planning as they made their way, in no hurry, towards the outside exit, leaving the rest of Becker's men to scurry around and secure the loading bay. They both had their backs to Jack, and he knew exactly what his sister was doing. The silent treatment. Fine. He could deal with that; it meant she wasn't going to try and kill him.

**Hope you had fun, and once again I am so very sorry for not updating for a few months. Please leave me a review, and I promise it won't happen again. **


	8. Chapter 8

**Once again apologies for the stupid amount of time I take uploading things. No excuses this time, just the usual thanks going to:**_ Prawn_ _Crackers_ **and**_ Mijo54 _**for reviewing. Enjoy this chapter :)**

"The top three levels are clear," Teresa declared, striding into the Hub and down the stairs in one determined march. "There's no sign of them; nothing there now but the irritating hum of research equipment."

"And that is why you aren't a scientist," Jack quipped. Teresa completely ignored him, as she had been doing for the last two hours, and awaited Becker's response as if he hadn't spoken at all. Becker was impressed; she hadn't shifted the focus of her gaze off him for even the most fleeting of seconds.

"There's no sign of any activity anywhere else in the building either," he informed her. "And clean-up is underway."

"They've already done a pretty good job with this place," Teresa remarked, and she was right. Where only a few hours ago there had been blood stains all over the walls and floor and a pile of corpses up to Becker's shoulder, there was now nothing but the ever-present spotless metal tiles, and no sign whatsoever that the events of the night had ever even occurred. Becker was beginning to wonder if it had actually happened at all, or if the entire thing had just been a figment of his imagination. He was still concussed, after all.

"So what's the plan?" she went on. "Obviously no one in the ARC team can know about this."

"I don't think we can keep it a secret from them for long," he said, tiredly. "Even if no one tells them deliberately, it's nearly impossible to keep a secret around here. And..." he winced as the thought came into his own head. "We will have to tell Lester."

Teresa dropped into a chair with a groan. _"Mierda,"_ she muttered. "I'd forgotten about him." Becker mumbled his agreement and leant back over a work desk, a pounding headache emerging now that the effects of the adrenaline in his system had worn off. He wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep; something he had been promising himself for the last twelve hours or so.

"So what's the plan, boss?" Teresa repeated. How ironic, Becker thought, that she was perfectly willing to give over command now that the heat had died down and the only thing left to do was sort out the minor-yet-so-important details. He probably would have laughed in any other situation.

"We need to get back outside, debrief my men, and make sure no trace of this remains by the time the rest of the team arrive."

"Why do I get the feeling that something is going to happen between now and then?"

"Um, because you're extremely paranoid?"

Once again, Jack was completely and utterly ignored by his sister, whose eyebrow had been raised at the question. Becker just shrugged; he had, actually, come to the same answer. With a sigh, Teresa got up.

"We'd better get a move on then," she decided, and before Becker could even complain she was already at the elevators. Jack cast a weary glance in his general direction and followed, pulling Becker up off his chair in the process.

"So why do you reckon they showed up?" Becker asked Teresa, just to fill the awkward silence that was ensuing as a result of her refusal to speak to the other West sibling.

"My first guess was that they were after me; Mother has stopped at very little in order to get me back since I left. But now I'm not so sure."

"Oh?"

"Hmm. The death toll was just too high. They've never done that before. I think they were distracting us while they went in search of something else."

"Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know. This facility houses research and equipment relating to portals that open randomly to other eras of the Earth's history. What do you think they could have been after?"

"You would never have guessed, what with that sarcasm and all, that she was foreign, would you?" Jack said lazily. Becker shot him a warning glance, but he just winked in return. He was testing her he realised, to see just how far she would take this. By this time they were out of the elevators and halfway down the corridor that would lead them back to the loading bay and, eventually, outside. Back to Jess, ran across Becker's mind for a split second, followed by an insane confusion. Why on Earth had he thought that?

"So what do I tell the men?" Becker wondered. "We don't know what happened to them, but they might come back at any time. We'd be on Red Alert for the rest of our lives."

"No more so than usual," Teresa countered. "They're just another intruder. Although, I would up the numbers of the night guard from now on."

"Great. They'll love that."

"You know, Tres, you could..."

Jack didn't get any further in his suggestion because the back of Teresa's hand, faster than Becker had ever seen anyone move, flew round, and caught Jack square across the jaw. The sound it made was more akin to that of a gun going off, and unsurprisingly, Jack needed a moment to recover. When he had, his right cheek was bright red where the impact had landed.

"The last time you called me that," she hissed, her voice dangerously low and a lightning storm brewing in her dark eyes, "You were telling me that you would be home again in three days. What happened to those three days, Jackson?"

"Are we really going to do this now?" Jack asked, sounding bored as he nursed his obviously aching cheek.

"Why not? If you want my opinion, now's the best time to do it, because the longer you take in explaining to me just what the... the... _barenjena_... was going through your head, the angrier I am going to get."

"What do eggplants have to do with anything?" Jack wondered, confused.

"Answer the damn question!" Teresa yelled, advancing towards him with a murderous expression in her eyes. Jack had little time to react. Teresa, with a ferocity Becker had never before seen her display, threw punches and kicks at him with lightning speed, shouting a barrage of Spanish curses that would probably not have been understood by even those most fluent in the language. To Becker's great surprise, Jack blocked them all and stood his ground, not even attempting to land a blow of his own but still remaining, unmovable, in the same place. It was impressive; he knew what Teresa was capable of, and it was no mean feat to be able to predict and defend those attacks, especially with a bullet wound in one arm. He remembered Teresa saying that Jack had taught her everything she knew. That much seemed obvious now.

Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fight was brought to an end by Jack. In one swift motion, he caught his sister's wrists and spun her around, pinning her arms across her chest with his own. It was a neat trick; Jack, being the obviously stronger of the two, had Teresa completely immobilised.

"Finished?" he asked. Teresa, anger still flaring in her eyes, struggled to escape him, with no results. "Can we talk about this like civilised people?" Jack pressed. This seemed to strike home in her, for her eyes closed for a brief moment and she exhaled sharply, composing herself with obvious effort. Ten seconds passed before Jack's arms began to loosen. A smile, unseen by the older sibling, played across Teresa's lips, and so fast Becker had no idea how she did it, she flipped Jack over one shoulder and left him sprawled across the floor, dazed.

"Yeah, now I'm finished," she said cheerfully, stepping over him and proceeding towards the loading bay, that smile broad across her lips.

Jess fidgeted. She hadn't stopped fidgeting since West had gone back into the building to look for more members of that secret organisation. What if there were still more inside? The men she and West had run into in the loading bay were, after all, still unaccounted for. What if they were just hiding, and jumped out from behind something, and killed one of them? She didn't even know where Becker was; she'd been sitting outside ever since the backup team arrived. She hated it; just sitting outside, not doing anything, not knowing what was going on. But even she had to admit, she would just get in the way otherwise.

There was a dull thud as the loading bay doors slid open, revealing most of the security team and the laughing and wholly irresponsible form of Captain Becker. Jess was out of the car in seconds and racing towards him as fast as she could in her shoes. Becker saw her instantly. The laughter fell from his face, and filling it instead was something else, something Jess couldn't read. Not that she had been trying; in no more than six seconds she had reached him, and without even slowing down she jumped and threw her arms around his neck. She thought she would knock him over, but he didn't even budge. His arms wrapped around her and he lifted her up, flooding her with relief. He was okay. Nothing was broken; he would have made it clear by now if the opposite applied; and he had, as far as she could tell, no other injuries. He'd gotten off lightly, she realised, and been extremely lucky.

Suddenly their location and surroundings came back to her, and she felt her cheeks grow hot. She was, after all, hugging Captain Becker in front of pretty much every soldier the ARC employed. It was probably going to be quite embarrassing for him later. Clearing her throat slightly she disentangled herself from him and tried to avoid his gaze. She didn't succeed; the intensity behind the deep brown irises was impossible to avoid, and she found herself being pulled into his chest. She didn't fight him; she didn't want to. She felt his lips press against the top of her head and his arms encircle her, one around her waist and the other around her shoulders. She listened to his heartbeat through his shirt slow down gradually from the racing pulse it had been, and she realised that it wasn't like that from any fighting he had been doing. She smiled to herself and sighed; there was, really, nowhere else she would rather have been.

What seemed like whole minutes later, his arms fell and she took it as a hint to step back, the moment over. His eyes bored into hers for a moment more, before he leaned towards her again and kissed her on the forehead in exactly the same way he had earlier. She smiled up at him despite herself, and was rewarded with one of his rare but beautiful smiles in return. Then he turned to address his men. Jess looked around the car park; soldiers were milling around, chatting idly to one another. Teresa West had found a med-kit somewhere and was in the process of tying a bandage around her brother's arm. Blood had already soaked onto it.

"Ow!" he whined as she pulled the knot tight.

"Stop complaining," she commanded.

"No sympathy, you. None at all."

"You say that as if I might be insulted."

Jess couldn't help but laugh. The two of them were, she realised, a perfect pair. Then her attention was shifted back to Becker, who had begun shouting now to make himself heard.

"Right men, first priority is a complete and detailed sweep of the whole facility. Everything needs to be exactly the way it was, and all before..."

"Let me guess. Before Lester arrives." The ominous and somewhat patronising voice cut Becker off, and filled nearly everyone present with a sense of doom. The very man stood a few paces behind Becker, his attention focused on a mobile phone in his hand in an attempt to make them feel insignificant. It seemed to be working on everyone except Jack.

"Sorry, don't mean to be rude, but who are you?" he asked, with a tone and expression that suggested the exact opposite. It got Lester's attention though.

"James Lester, Home Office. The government official in charge around here. Or did you think that an operation like this just sprung up out of thin air?" Lester fixed Jack with one of his famous 'I'm-superior-to-you-and-I-know-it' expressions before turning to Becker. At the word 'government' Jack stiffened and his eyes hardened, exchanging a meaningful look with his sister.

"I want you two, your Sargent and him in my office immediately," he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Jack, and Becker sensed that his boss had taken an instant dislike to the man. "I want an explanation for this, and you'd better hope there are no blood stains on my carpet." With that Lester pocketed his phone and strode towards the doors, and Becker, Teresa, Jack and Jess had no choice but to follow him in.

"I need to get out of here," Jack muttered to Teresa, his eyes darting around for an escape he could use to disappear. Teresa gave a sarcastic laugh.

"You're in this now, brother. Sometimes you have to take the fall yourself and not drop it on other people's shoulders."

"That's really not funny," Jack muttered. Teresa laughed again, properly this time, and his glower darkened.

Typically, Lester sat ostentatiously at his desk and waited for everyone else to do the same while giving the impression that they were all wasting his time and needed to get a move on. Teresa and Jack occupied the two seats immediately in front of the desk, Jess sat on the spare chair by the door, and Becker leaned against the window, arms folded. Lester's gaze trailed around them all, lingering on each for a painful amount of time.

"Well someone had better have an explanation," he said after a far too long silence. "West? What's your input?" He raised an eyebrow at Teresa, who merely shrugged and addressed her brother.

"Go on then," she said, earning rare confusion from Lester and plain irritation from Jack. He said something in Spanish that Teresa found extremely amusing before ignoring her altogether and relating to Lester the same story Teresa had told Jess a few hours earlier, but skipping out the details and telling only what needed to be told. Teresa threw in the occasional word every now and then but generally kept quiet. Jess sat in silence, already knowing the answers, and Becker, with the expression of someone utterly confused, asked the questions. Lester sat in thoughtful silence until and long after Jack finished. It became painful before he finally spoke.

"So you're telling me a secret government organisation…"

"Not government, but secret yes," Jack interrupted. Lester glared at him.

"…has been operating in Spain for the last hundred years without anyone noticing and suddenly they invade the ARC looking for your sister? I am intrigued as to why on earth you thought I was going to believe that."

"What you choose to believe is completely irrelevant," Jack said smartly, warming up to Lester's tone. "That's the truth. Whether or not you accept it isn't my problem."

"And what about you?" Lester turned on Teresa, the calm demeanour giving way ever so slightly. "What have you to add to this tale of flight and fantasy?"

"Nothing, really," she said, matching Jack's apparent inability to care about Lester's opinion. It was, Becker thought from his place by the door, making the man feel somewhat uncomfortable. "Only my confirmation that the entire thing is true."

"And why should I believe your word? You've only worked here a few days."

"Well, you employed me, didn't you? That should suggest something of a level of trust."

"And I will personally vouch for the validity of their story," Becker interrupted. "I've seen enough to believe them myself." Beside him, Jess nodded eagerly. Lester sighed.

"Great. Mutiny. Again."

"Look, Guv, it makes the square root of no difference to me at all if you choose to believe us or not. To be honest, you can probably confirm everything I've just said by making a phone call to someone high up in government." Jack stood up as he spoke, earning himself a look from Lester. It was a withering look, and everyone else in the office felt that he had just overstepped the line.

"Sit." Lester ordered, and to everyone's surprise, Jack sat.

"The validity of your tale notwithstanding, the fact remains that a group of people successfully invaded the ARC and probably made off with something; even if you are convinced it was only Sargent West they were after, this is a unique facility..."

"You think," Jack muttered. He was now sitting in the chair like a grumpy schoolboy flagged up before the headmaster; slouched down, arms folded. Lester glared at him further, and he received a kick from Teresa that brought him into a more civilised position.

"...And because of that, it is feasible that they took something. Matt, Abby and Connor should be arriving any minute. I will tell them what has happened. In the meantime," now he addressed Becker specifically. "I want a full assessment of the contents of the ARC; everything that should be and is here. You will probably need Connor's help, and you will get it as soon as I am done with him."

Becker nodded.

"Jess, you will do a full review of the security cameras; find out how they got in and the first places they went. As for you two..." he turned to the West siblings, but was cut off yet again. This time it was by Jack's mobile phone omitting a shrill and somewhat uncomfortable trilling.

"Hang on, must take this." He got up and went to the corner of the room, talking in rapid Spanish into the phone. Teresa paled in her seat.

"Jack..." she stood up. He held up a finger while he listened into the phone, and only lowered it again when the conversation was over. "Who was that?"

"No one you know. Sorry, Guv, what were you saying?"

"Jackson!" the word came out as a hiss, and seconds later, Teresa was leading her brother by the arm out of the office. Jack had only the time to shoot a pleading glance at Becker before he was flung against a wall and Teresa launched into a lecture. She was cut off by the soundproofed door clicking home.

"Anyone else care to begin a complicated family drama?" Lester wondered out loud. "Well you all know what you have to do."

Becker and Jess took that as their cue to leave, and went off in opposite directions as soon as they were out the door.

**So thanks for reading, please do the usual thing and fill in a review sheet on the way out. :)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Well this is exciting; I have actually managed to write another chapter without a six-month gap in between. Wow. I might need to sit down. Anyway, the usual thanks to **_Prawn Crackers_** for reviewing, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. I think you will…**

"Who was that, Jack?" Teresa demanded, not in her usual low, hissing kind of way, but using a more weary tone. It scared Jack just a little bit more than the hissing would have; she only did that when she had reached the end of whatever tether she had been clinging to for the last few hours.

"No one you know," he repeated. "Just someone with useful contacts."

"It sounded like Galvan."

Jack sighed. He hated it when she knew everything.

"Yes, okay, fine. You win. It was Galvan."

"I told you to stay away from him!"

"I know. The only snag being that you told me a long time after we had started doing deals."

"What kind of deals?"

"Oh, you know. Information for a bit of hired muscle. The usual thing."

"Information? You mean he knows about Ortega?"

"Apparently so. He claims to have a man on the inside, but I very much doubt it. He is useful, Tres, there's no denying that."

"Be that as it may, he is dangerous too. He's the sort of man who would shoot you in the back if it suited his purposes or gave him a bigger profit. And anyway, your Spanish is terrible; he could be telling you anything."

"It's not that bad," Jack grumbled. She was right, though; he had no clue what Galvan was saying half the time.

"Yes it is. Let me talk to him next time."

"No!" he shouted, and cursed himself a second later.

"Why?"

He sighed again. "Because he can't know that I know where you are. You're right, as usual; he does deals on both sides. He's being paid double what I could ever give him to turn you in too."

"Great."

"I know."

"No, really, that's a good thing."

"Umm... I don't follow."

"It's a good thing because we, or specifically I, can play that to our advantage. If, say, I answer your phone, and tell him you don't actually know I'm here, I can get anything out of him I need."

"How? The only way Galvan will give you anything is if you pay him."

"Your phone signal is hidden, right?"

"Not that one. It's new, and I have been busy."

"Also good... Are you following me yet?"

"No..." then it clicked in Jack's head. "Oh. You want him to be able to find you."

"Indeed. If he thinks he can find me, then he will tell me anything, just to keep me on the phone."

"So what's to stop him from lying to you?"

"I was getting there. I'll ask him a load of questions about Ortega that I know the answer to, and then if he lies, I'll... I don't know... Threaten him with something until he tells the truth. Fool proof plan."

"Except that within three minutes he WILL find you, and some of his lackeys will show up here to pick you up."

"And that, my dear brother, is where the ARC comes in. I can use the ADD to throw the phone signal. And then every time he calls, "you" will be in a different but still easily reachable place every time. You have got to admit, this is clever."

"Okay. I confess, it has potential." Truthfully, he had no idea if Galvan would fall for it; that man seemed to know everything that was going on at once.

"Great. When's he next going to call you?"

"Um..." Jack paused as three people emerged from the lift and headed in their direction, two men and a woman. The young man; he couldn't have been older than twenty-something; frowned and pointed at Jack in a way that he had probably confused for subtlety.

"Oh, hey guys," Teresa greeted them and didn't offer any introductions. "The big man's waiting."

"Yay," the young man said, earning himself a roll of the eyes from the woman. The three of them were beckoned through into the office, and the older man locked gazes with Jack until he had shut the door behind him. Even then, he could still feel eyes on his back.

"Friendly around here, aren't they?"

"Oh, that's just Matt. Doesn't trust anyone, don't take it personally. You were saying?"

"Hm? Right. Galvan... He said he'd call again in an hour, so... About forty five minutes."

"Fine. There's a locker room on the third floor. Go take a shower and come find me in the medical bay when you're done; I'll bandage that up again for you."

"Cheers. What about you, you alright?"

"Me? Yeah, fine."

"Tres..." he didn't believe her for a second. Her eyes were tired, and she hadn't insulted him in a while.

"I'm tired of this, Jack," she said grudgingly. "My whole life I have been trying to get out of it. What am I going to do; what are either of us going to do; when it's done?"

"I don't know," he said truthfully. "But I do know that it's going to be over soon."

"Really? How?"

"Oh, no reason. Just a hunch."

"You and your hunches. Go shower, you stink."

"Cheers." Jack laughed to himself; she was fine. Just a little tired, maybe. He made his way over to the elevator and eyed it with caution when it arrived; only a few hours ago this thing had been the vessel of death for him and Becker. Now it was just another harmless elevator. Funny, really, how suddenly things could change with just a mop and a bottle of bleach.

Teresa watched him go and sighed herself. Yesterday she had thought him dead, and today, there he was, just as inanely cheerful and determined as ever. She wondered sometimes if life wasn't a continuous thing, but instead a collection of instances that sometimes got put together in the wrong order. But that was too philosophical for her, weary and strained at half past six in the morning.

A knock on the glass behind her brought her back down to Earth, and she turned to see Matt beckoning her into the office.

"Do we know where Becker is?" Lester questioned as soon as the door was more than halfway open.

"No, but I can go find him for you."

"Do that. And then head back up here and fill Matt in on the events of the night. While you're at it you can write a report on it; I want to know in fairly good detail myself."

"Will that be all?" she asked, feeling like a secretary.

"For now."

"Jolly good."

"I'll do the sarcasm, thank you."

Teresa laughed and left the office, heading down towards the Hub.

"Jess, do you know where Becker went?"

"Probably down to the locker room for a shower and then on to either the armoury or the labs for equipment check. Most likely the armoury first."

"Thank you." she turned to leave but was stopped again.

"West?"

"Mmm?"

"I... I never thanked you."

"What for?"

"Well you did save my life."

Teresa laughed again. "No, I didn't. I think you would have managed that by yourself even if I hadn't shown up."

"Well... thanks anyway."

Teresa smiled, more to herself than Jess, and left the Hub. Jess had never taken a liking to her, she mused, a small detail that had become more obvious with that conversation. She wasn't the most likeable of people, she knew, but still, that didn't exactly warrant mindless hatred. West wondered what she had done. Knowing Jess as she did, probably not very much, and she certainly didn't let it play on her conscience. But still. It would be nice to know this kind of thing.

She found Becker exactly where Jess said he would be; in the armoury. He had a clean uniform on, she noted, something that she found surprising for no fathomable reason. She also noted his glass wound; while it had been stitched up very well, he had been using his arm too much recently to make it worth anything.

"You need to have that looked at," she said, coming further into the room. He turned abruptly; he hadn't realised she was there.

"It has been looked at," he muttered.

"I meant..."

"Yeah, I know what you meant." He sighed and leant against a crate of spare EMDs. "Nothing's missing here," he told her, pointlessly. She knew that already; he would have found it instantly if there was.

"Boss man wants to talk to you."

"What, again?"

"Mmmhmm. He's got Abby, Connor and Matt upstairs."

"Great. A man can't get five minutes by himself around here."

Teresa smirked. "Take it up with the unions," she suggested, earning herself a laugh from Becker

"You know you can probably go home," he said, wiping his eyes. "If there is another crisis today I will go insane."

"If anyone needs to go home, it's you, sir."

"Oh, so now I'm Sir to you?"

"Well, up until this point I have been either trying to prevent your death or possessor of the most knowledge in the situation."

Becker smiled a little, but didn't reply.

"Are you okay, sir?"

"You're right. I need to go home."

"You know, I can probably sway that with Lester if you want me to..."

"How? He doesn't like you."

"He doesn't like anyone."

"True. But that doesn't answer my question."

"A... shall we say, clause in the job description."

"What, that you can barter for Get out Of Jail Free cards with the boss?"

"No, that I have the authority to judge when you need time out for medical reasons. Due to your pointless stubbornness he thought it was a good idea."

"Oh."

"So, Captain, medical bay, Lester's office. In that order. Go. Now."

"Yes Ma'am." He sidestepped past her out of the armoury, leaving her to head back to Lester before he got there and persuade him to give the Captain the day off.

"...and there was nothing missing from the armoury, Sir. Full complement of EMDs accounted for." Becker concluded. He missed out the part about the small handful of lethal weapons he kept in a box in a corner, but they had all been there too, therefore he didn't feel the need to bring that up. They weren't supposed to be there anyway.

His fingers strayed to the fresh stitching on his arm. It was uncomfortable; there had been a different medic on duty and he had insisted that he replace it, against Becker's protests. It had been even more painful than the first time, but then again, at that point he had been semi-conscious and on sleep-inducing painkillers.

"Stop playing with it," Emily said from behind him, making him jump. He hadn't noticed her come in. "You'll infect it. Again."

"Excuse me; is anyone listening to what I am saying?" Lester enquired. 'No' was the response that immediately came to Becker's mind, but that was down to exhaustion, he reasoned.

"Sorry, Sir." was what he said instead.

"Hmm. Well I was going to say that you and Connor should head down to the research and development labs, but I have a report from your Sargent that you are in need of a medical leave of absence."

"What, already?" came out before Becker could think. He hadn't thought she would go straight up. "I mean..."

"Yes, she is terribly efficient. And she also insisted, so yes, you can have the rest of the day. Have Jess drive you; you're in no fit state to operate vehicles like that."

Becker had no intention whatsoever of asking Jess to drive him home, but unfortunately she chose that moment to appear brandishing some pieces of paper.

"Here's West's report," she stated.

"Bloody Hell," Connor muttered. "She was only in here fifteen minutes ago."

"Well maybe you can learn a thing or two from her, Connor," Lester replied curtly. "Jess, could you drive Captain Becker back to his flat? He has the day off."

"Lucky for some," Jess teased. Becker sighed. "Sure. Just let me get something running on the ADD. I'll meet you in the car park."

"It's really not necessary," Becker insisted ten minutes later when Jess arrived. Actually, it probably was; he felt like he was about to fall asleep on his feet if he wasn't careful.

"Don't worry; I'm not doing anything important." That too was a lie, Becker knew. Jess would have a whole host of things to get on with after a crisis like that.

"Are you... alright... by the way?" he asked. She too had taken a shower and cleaned herself up, but it hadn't crossed his mind to ask her how she was. She had almost been killed, after all.

"Fine. A little shaken, but I'm fine."

Becker nodded. By now they were hurtling through the streets of London towards his flat, and he watched the cars on the other side of the road, sitting motionless in the early morning rush hour. Fortunately, the roads out of the main city were clear, and their only problems were the occasional set of traffic lights.

Becker woke twenty minutes later to Jess shaking him lightly on the shoulder. They had arrived. He hadn't been aware of falling asleep, but wasn't at all surprised that he had. He smiled slightly at her and got out of the car. She followed him to the front door of the apartment building.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine tomorrow. I'm just worn out."

"Okay." she smiled, a genuine, bright smile, and headed back for her car.

"Jess," he called, crossing the short space in between them until they stood, barely inches apart from each other in the warm July sun. He had no idea what he was doing. But all the same, he knew that it had to be done. He would blame it on fatigue or something later. With one hand he cupped her cheek and brought her face up to meet his, and with the other he took hold of her waist and pulled it in towards him. She stumbled slightly but froze completely when their lips touched. He allowed only seconds of contact to last before disconnecting, but those seconds were enough. She stared up at him, her large blue eyes wide and full of wonder. Then, with no warning at all, she threw herself at him for the second time that morning and wrapped her arms around his neck. Becker took a few steps backwards and met the wall he knew was there, coming into contact with it with a painful actuality that he barely registered; Jess' lips had found his again, and he held one hand under her thigh, keeping her at just the right height. Their caresses were filled with a desperate longing, and Becker realised that he should have done this months ago.

He didn't know how long they stayed like that, and neither did he particularly care. But he did realise with a sudden acuteness that she would be in enormous trouble if she was later than bad traffic allowed.

"You need to go back to work," he murmured, making no effort to persuade her to. She made a noise in return, and they allowed another minute or so to pass. With a resigned sigh, Becker lowered her back to the floor. She complained at him, understandably, but he insisted, slowly pulling himself away from her until he was out of reach.

"Do you want me to go?" she asked.

"No..."

"Well then." She made to kiss him again, but he caught her.

"...But you have to," he finished. Her face fell.

"Jess," he implored. She looked up at him expectantly, but he realised he had no idea how to finish that sentence. So instead he kissed her again, softly, as way of a goodbye. He was only going to see her again tomorrow, so he didn't know why he was being so emotional, but it felt right.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said softly.

"Sleep well," she instructed, backing away from him slowly, not turning around until she had reached her car. He watched her drive away before turning and entering the lobby area and taking the stairs up to his flat. By the time he reached the fifth floor he was grinning like an idiot. He didn't feel the need to shower again, instead opting to lie down fully clothed. He fell asleep instantly, and dreamed beautiful dreams of Jess.

**Thanks for reading, please leave a review **


	10. Chapter 10

**Oh my goodness, look at this. Another chapter. Finally. Um, so, yeah, usual thanks: **Mijo54**, **SandyLee Potts** and **Prawn Crackers**, all of whom I would like to thank for sticking with this story throughout. You guys have been a great help to me with all your really encouraging reviews. Enjoy this chapter.**

**Chapter Ten**

The ARC was quiet for the rest of the day. Jess returned with a beaming smile that she point blankly refused to explain, and anyone within ten yards of the ADD could have sworn they heard her singing to herself. Teresa, after a twenty-minute argument with her brother that looked like it was going to come to blows by the end, explained her mother's organisation to Matt, Abby, Connor and Emily; a task that took the pair of them up to midday. Matt asked no questions, Abby only one or two, Connor refused to believe it because "it sounded too much like a Dan Abnett novel" and Emily said that she would rather not believe that such corruption existed in this world. This, of course, resulted in a cascade of laughter from Jack, silenced by Teresa's threat of imminent violence if he didn't shut up.

"They're treating it like a fairy story," he complained when the others had gone.

"To them it probably is. And anyway, Emily's from the eighteen hundreds. Stuff like this doesn't sit well with her."

"Right. You know you just delivered that bombshell very casually, don't you?"

Teresa laughed. "And Matt's from an indeterminable point in the future. It's quite fun, really."

"I am going to try not to think too much about that. I mean, seriously. Secret organisations and assassination attempts I can deal with. Time portals to distant eras... Not so much."

"You're such a child."

"You tell me that often. On a more serious and therefore more relevant note, how did that conversation with Galvan go?"

"Very well; better than I'd expected. Instead of trying to kill me he actually wants to work with me. Apparently El Voz are slowly taking over the government, which may not affect most people, but "businessmen" like Galvan have got to be on their toes. He claims that I'm more useful to him free than captured."

"Well that's a turn up for the books."

"Whatever that actually means. Basically he wants to do deals with me now; I know more about how they work than anyone else is willing to tell him."

"Does he know we're working together?"

"He does. Liked the sound of it, too."

"Great. This day is actually going better than expected."

"Careful; we're only halfway through it."

Jack laughed, and then yawned. "So how come Becker gets a day off and the rest of us don't?"

"Mainly because a building fell on him yesterday..." she paused, thought for a moment, and then whistled through her teeth. "Wow, that was only yesterday."

"Feels weird, doesn't it?"

"That's one way of describing it. Why are you complaining, anyway? You don't even work here. If you want to leave, go ahead."

"Well, I thought about that. Only..."

"Oh. Right." Teresa read through his feigned embarrassment and sighed. "Come with me. Unsurprisingly I don't keep the keys to my apartment on me during the day."

"Thanks little sister," Jack crooned."

"Less of the little; I can take you whenever I like."

"This morning was a one-off," he insisted as they made their way along a corridor. Jack realised just how much he trusted his sister; he had no idea where they were or where they were going. Had he been with anyone else, he wouldn't have let his guard down so low.

"Where did you pick that up, anyway? I never taught you how to throw someone over your shoulder like that."

"Who says I needed to be told?"

Jack snorted. "It's not something you can just do, Tres."

"Call it beginner's luck then. Or are you jealous?"

"Of you? Never."

"Sure. Because if you wanted to clarify I could try it again..."

Jack opened his mouth, clearly about to tell her where she could stick that idea, when the alarms-and-red-lights combination that was so frequent around the ARC echoed through the corridors. Teresa had doubled back at a run before Jack had even recovered from the sudden shock.

"Where is it, Jess?" She had no idea why there was an ARC earpiece in her ear, or even when she had put it there. But don't question that now; just get to the 4X4s outside.

"It's... Oh God, it's in the ARC!" Jess' voice, harsh in her ear with the implications of her statement. "West, get there before Lockdown initiates."

"On it. Where is it?" She skidded to a halt, glaring as Jack slammed into her back.

"Corridor outside the fitness suite." Whatever imperatives she then uttered about how important it was that she got there as quickly as possible were lost on West, because she had already taken off at a run. Jack soon caught up with her, and they shot each other a glance as she led the way to the emergency stairwell and up two floors.

The lights had gone out, probably on the entire floor, due to the amount of electromagnetic interference anomalies caused. The only source of illumination was the thing itself, occupying almost the entire corridor in width and flickering silver, the glass-like shards rotating around each other in a dizzying display. Jack was transfixed.

"So this is an anomaly..." he said out loud.

"Mmmhmm. You still got that pistol?"

"No, your boss made me turn it in."

"Who, Lester?"

No, that Irish guy."

"Oh, he's not really my boss. I can ignore him if I want to."

"Right. Why did you ask, by the way?"

"Well, I need you to watch this thing while I go around the corner to Connor's lab and find a locking device. You don't really need a pistol, it's just you might find it handy if a raptor comes out or something."

"Again, you said all that as if it was the most normal thing in the world."

"Shut up and watch the big flickering thing."

"Flickering thing. Watch it. Gotcha."

Teresa backed away from the anomaly, keeping her eyes fixed on it until she met the corner and was forced to leave it in the hands of her brother. She turned and took the remaining hundred feet at a run, sliding to a stop across the polished floor in front of Connor's lab. There was no light; what the anomaly emitted didn't reach this far; but she could tell through some instinct she had learned to trust that something was wrong. A crash; as if someone had walked into a desk and knocked equipment onto the floor; reached her from the bowels of the lab. Someone was in there, and they knew they had company. Teresa stepped back, out of the doorway, and waited for whoever it was to make a move.

Silence, the calm-before-the-storm kind, stretched on for half a minute or so, before a black-clad, six foot, twelve-stone force slammed into her from behind, sending her sprawling on the floor. The person she had actually been waiting for leapt over her on his way out of the lab, joining his friend in a desperate run down the corridor. Teresa tried to get up, but her limbs refused to obey. Her assailant had knocked all the breath out of her, leaving her winded on the floor. Her hands scrabbled uselessly at the polished floor for a moment. Then the adrenaline kicked in. Those two were probably heading back to the anomaly. Hell, they had probably caused it; one of them was in Connor's lab, and who knew what kinds of things he had in there that could do all sorts to anomalies. There were two of them, and Jack was the only one guarding it. He was unarmed, they probably weren't. He was a good fighter, but he wasn't an Agent of the Matrix. She had to get up and help him. She had to tell Jess that there were two - possibly more - intruders in the building. She had to do something...

With an outrageous effort, she pushed her hands underneath her and managed to take in enough breath to get to her knees. It became easier after that. Soon she was on her feet, stumbling at first down the corridor but then managing a jog. The sounds of her brother's plight reached her before the corner did.

She checked herself on how much credit she ought to give him in the future; he had one locked in an intense hand-to-hand battle that was leading them both around in circles, while the other tried desperately to find a clear shot at him without hitting his accomplice. Neither of them seemed to see Teresa.

"Jess, we have two intruders down here. I think they stayed behind from this morning's attack. Don't sound general alarm, not yet." She whispered into her com piece, not wanting the El Voz operatives to hear her. She would back her brother up if he needed it, but so far he was doing pretty well on his own. He spun the man he was fighting over his hip in much the same way she had done to him a few hours before, snatching his pistol out of its holster at the same time and training it on each of them in turn. Teresa took her cue to step out and join him, moving past them and around in a circle until the pair of them stood with their backs to the wall, anomaly, Spaniards before them, anomaly to their left. For the longest time nobody moved. It was only then that Teresa realised she had received no response from Jess.

"Jess? Do you read?"

What answered her was indeed Jess Parker, but it wasn't through the distant, crackling feed of the ARC com. The whimper came from the stairwell, as a third Spaniard appeared through the doorway to the stairwell. He was pushing Jess at an awkward angle in front of him, a pistol raised to her forehead. Jack's eyes and aim shifted to them, giving the other two enough of a chance to make a lunge for the anomaly, throwing the third man a device they had presumably stolen from Connor's lab. Jack let them go; they weren't the priority anymore.

The Spaniard edged towards the waiting Anomaly, small device in one hand and a terrified Jess in the other. His gun pressed into her forehead, and he was growing more and more agitated by the fact that she kept tripping over her shoes.

"Move and I shoot," he barked in rapid Spanish. There was fear in his voice.

"You don't have to do this you know," Teresa tried. It sometimes worked on Ortega's men, those who were too young to know any better. This one clearly wasn't one of them; he simply laughed.

"You think you can affect me with your lies? I know about you. Both of you. The things you have done. The Leader wants you." He took another step sideways; he was right next to the anomaly now, preparing to step through it. Teresa knew that it would close immediately behind him thanks to the device in his hand; Connor's most recent attempt to re-create Helen Cutter's ability to control the anomalies. What she didn't know was where it led, or if he would take Jess with him. Becker would never forgive her if he did. The Spaniard laughed again; a wild, feral sound that suggested complete madness as a result of his indoctrination.

"Look at you, so helpless. You have nothing…"

"Let her go."

The deep tenor sounded as the ominous form of Captain Becker materialised behind the Spaniard, an EMD instantly meeting the flesh of his temple. He appeared to have come through the anomaly, although Teresa knew he would never have even considered it. Hell, he was supposed to still be at home.

The Spaniard's eyes widened, the madness behind them showing through. He was right to be afraid; Becker was almost twice his width, a few inches taller than him, and was staring down at him through dark eyes, merely a silhouette against the golden light of the anomaly. It was, all things considered, a terrifying sight.

"You have been warned, Traitors," the Spaniard shouted for dramatic effect, before pushing Jess away from him with his foot and stepping back into the anomaly in one smooth movement. Jess stumbled and fell, but Becker shot across the corridor and caught her on his arm. Jack immediately turned and fired a shot, knowing she was safe, but the anomaly was already mostly closed. The bullet went through, but there was no way to even be sure it had hit the man, let alone where.

"Are you alright?" Becker murmured to Jess, making sure she was straight on her feet before tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Jess nodded, but she was crying, and Becker clearly wasn't convinced. Teresa realised with a jump that she should not be watching such an exchange, and elbowed Jack hard in the ribs to let him know the same thing.

"Lester's office," she stated, knowing that the Captain would follow as soon as he was finished. "Now." And she pulled a still somewhat gaping Jack along the corridor back to the stairs.

"Are you alright?" Becker had to know. Jess had been through enough, too much, in the last twenty four hours. She wasn't trained for this. She looked like she might collapse at any given moment. She nodded, but he didn't buy it for a second; the tears were falling thick and fast, smudging in her newly-applied mascara and leaving thick black trails down her cheeks. He brushed them clean with his thumb. For some reason, this only made Jess cry harder, and she leant against his chest, letting him stroke her hair and envelop her in his embrace.

"It's going to be alright, Jess," he whispered. He felt like her protector; his strong arms folded around her slight body. He felt like he could shield her from anything, or he would anyway, even... Even if it killed him. The fact hit him like the proverbial smack in the face. He would die for Jess Parker. If it meant saving her, he would do anything. Distract the attention of carnivorous dinosaurs. Stand in front of insane Spaniards with loaded guns. Whatever it took to keep her alive. It was a sobering thought, and there was an ever-decreasing part of his brain that told him it was a stupid one, but as it settled in his brain he knew it to be true. He loved her, and that was all it came down to really.

With that realisation firmly in mind, he held her until her sobs subsided and she fidgeted in his arms. She looked embarrassed at such an outburst, and he tried to relinquish it by brushing new dark tear-formed streaks from her face.

"You're supposed to be at home," she stuttered, voice cracking as she tried to recover herself.

"I had nothing to do when I woke up so came back in. I was only five minutes away when my detector went off." He didn't want to be talking about such petty things, but if it helped her recover, he didn't mind.

"You're ridiculous," she muttered, but there was a smile creeping into her expression.

"Maybe," he agreed, smiling himself. He let the gesture fill his eyes and gazed down at her with it, trying to transmit his newly discovered emotions to her. He would never know if he succeeded, but at the very least it gave her new strength. She straightened up, wiped her eyes, and smoothed out her skirt.

"Lester," she stated, her usual confidence returned to her voice. "He needs to know what just happened."

"I think Teresa and Jack are already on top of that," he assured her, noticing for the first time that the West siblings had quite literally vanished. "But still, we ought to grace him with our presence, just to be sure."

She laughed a little at that, and with it restored his confidence that she was alright. She amazed him regularly how she could witness - or even be part of - atrocities such as this, and still emerge smiling with words of reassurance. It made him want to be able to do the same.

True to prediction, the Wests were already standing before Lester, Jack tapping one foot against the other in impatience and Teresa only just exercising more restraint.

"...This has become out of hand," Lester stated, his voice becoming audible to Becker as soon as he had the door open wide enough. He hadn't knocked, and he wondered how the boss would make him pay for that in some subtle way later.

"Yes, we'd noticed that too," Jack retorted. He still hadn't gelled well with Lester, and Becker frankly wasn't all that surprised; they were, actually, very similar people.

"And," Lester continued, irritated at being interrupted with sarcasm that rivalled his own. "It needs to be stopped. I am going to send a report of this to Whitehall..."

"NO!" Both West siblings shouted at once.

"Sir, this cannot reach official ears," Teresa began. "Because if Ortega knows that a government is on to her..."

"She'll only speed up her plans. The last thing we need is the British Government knowing about this." Jack finished.

"What exactly do you suggest we do, then?"

"Keep quiet. Watch what they do with that opening device of theirs, and respond to it."

"It'll be harder for her to keep her activities under the radar now."

"And we have people in high places."

"Ah, yes, this Galvan character," Lester clearly wasn't impressed by an illegal force assisting their efforts. As if on cue, Teresa's mobile chimed.

"It's him," she reported to her brother.

"What? He didn't organise another call."

"No, he didn't."

Becker shared a glance with Jess as Teresa stepped out of the room, pressing green and beginning a rapid Spanish dialogue before the door had closed behind her. Jack turned to Becker, ignoring Lester's newly-forming comment altogether, as soon as the soft sighing confirmed that she wouldn't hear what he was about to say.

"I need you to transfer Teresa," he stated, blunt as ever.

"What? Why?"

"Look, this attack on the ARC; we had it wrong. They weren't after Teresa; they were after the Anomaly device. That's why they had so many men; they expected it to be heavily guarded. But now that they know that she's here, she's in danger again."

"And you want me to sack her, basically."

"Well no. Her records did state that she was subject to transfer at any time, and I hear Hawaii is very nice at this time of year."

Becker sighed. Jack had a point, he couldn't deny that. But at the same time, Teresa was probably the best Sargent he had ever had. He didn't want to give her up. But could he allow her to be in danger because of his selfishness? The answer was no, he couldn't.

"Hawaii?"

"It's out of the way, unlikely to be of any interest to Mother Dear in her little scheme, and they have a nice independent police force out there that, with a little string pulling," he looked pointedly at Lester, who straightened in his chair and looked affronted, "She could be onto in no time. And besides, she's always wanted to go there."

"You know that your sister is probably one of my best soldiers, right?"

"Almost certainly. But if she stays, she might just get killed. And so might you; El Voz will probably come back for her."

"Won't they do that anyway?" Jess thought aloud.

"No, they'll notice in a few days that she's gone."

"How, exactly?"

"Didn't someone cut your main power a couple of days ago? That was them. They're in your system now."

"Great."

"Terribly sorry to interrupt," Lester cut in, in a tone of voice that clearly suggested that he wasn't at all, "But is this operation under any more threat from El Voz?"

"No," Jack replied, happily. "You should be fine. They have what they came for."

"And you're sure of that?"

"Yep. Otherwise they'd still be here."

The door opened, providing a convenient pause in the discussion that Lester would certainly use to end it, and Teresa returned.

"What did he want?"

"Later."

"Right."

"So now that all this has been sorted out, it's back to business," Lester stated, true to predictions. "I suppose you all have things to be getting on with. Oh, and can someone send Connor up here? I need to have words with him about providing accurate information about all his projects."

"So this is goodbye," Becker stated, rocking forward on the balls of his feet with his hands clasped behind his back. Teresa knew him well enough now to know that those gestures meant he thought the situation awkward. And it was, but only a little.

"You know, I don't think we've seen the last of each other," she said, smiling.

"Oh? How's that?"

"Call it instinct."

He nodded, with nothing left to say. It felt strange, she reasoned, them saying goodbye in the same room they had first met. It gave their relationship a sense of completion in a strange, non-specific way.

Becker looked around the empty Rec Room, not meeting her eye for a while. When he finally did, his were full of an overflow of emotions that he couldn't - or didn't want to - hide from her. He didn't want to let her go; she could see that in his face; but it was the logical decision. Even she had to agree with that one, she who probably cared the least about her own life. She would go, but only because it would protect the rest of the ARC team. She was still going to kill Jack later.

"Good luck," he said, finally, and he meant it. He offered his hand, which she shook with a sincerity that she rarely felt.

"You too." She didn't quite know what she meant with; the ARC operations, his relationship with Jess, or just his life in general; but it was a nice sentiment. It was something better than just a nod. It gave her a hope, as she turned away from him and swung her hold all over one shoulder, that maybe this time she would have something to come back to when all of this was over.

**The End. Basically. Wow, it feels so good to finally have finished this. I've been writing it for, what… Jeez, over a year ago. So yeah, please review; tell me what you thought of the whole thing, if it was the first time you've read it, or let me know what you thought of the ending whether it was or it wasn't. **

**See y'all around…**


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